As Dreamville closes a chapter, music festivals will remain part of Raleigh’s future
Dreamville isn’t the only music festival to end its run in Raleigh.
The week-long International Bluegrass Music Association festival ended in 2024 after 12 years. At its peak it drew over 200,000 people to Raleigh.
“I think them both leaving in the same year has stirred up a lot of ‘Why don’t we have more?’ questions,” said former Mayor Nancy McFarlane.
There will still be music festivals in downtown Raleigh, with the genre-spanning indie and experimental Hopscotch festival returning Sept. 4-6, and PineCone organizing a reimagined Raleigh Wide Open Bluegrass Festival Oct. 3-4.
There have even been very-early conversations about continuing some kind of large music festival at Dix Park.
The questions, said Loren Gold, vice president of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau, are: “How do we either continue to grow organically and amplify existing events? Or how do we acquire new events or festivals that are happening in other cities and bring them here and kind of show them the Raleigh partnership love, if you will?”
Raleigh pitched IBMA organizers for two years before the festival left Nashville over a decade ago. The 2025 bluegrass festival is headed to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
“We put a lot of sweat equity into that event, helping them grow their brand and bringing some Raleigh uniqueness to the event,” Gold said. “The street festival hadn’t been done in Nashville, and that really just amplified the event. It kind of took it to signature event status.”
The future of festivals in Raleigh
Dave Rose started Deep South Entertainment after graduating from N.C. State University. His company manages musical artists and produces concerts and events, including the music programming for the N.C. State Fair and Out! Raleigh Pride.
“I’ve been in this community for 30 years, and music and music festivals have been an integral part of this community for a very, very long time — long before many lived here, and long before either of those big festivals came,” he said. “I’m quite confident in the future of music festivals in Raleigh.”
Raleigh’s mayors, in particular, have supported musicians and found ways to encourage live music. Former Mayor Charles Meeker spearheaded the revitalization of downtown Raleigh that included Red Hat Amphitheater and the Raleigh Convention Center.
McFarlane remembers there were lots of places to play live music downtown but few places for bands to load and unload their gear.
“It was pretty simple, but that was a huge thing for the bands, right?” she said. “Because unloading and loading their stuff — if you’ve got two or three bands in a night — it’s a lot. Not everyone is the Lincoln Theatre that has a whole parking lot next door. It’s a simple change like that that can help encourage things to grow.”
‘A beautiful music scene’
Rose remembers producing weekly concerts at Moore Square through the Alive After Five concert series, a series recently brought back by the Downtown Raleigh Alliance.
“The current music scene, creatively, rivals anything in the nation,” he said. “And I don’t mean that as a local. I mean genuinely the musicians and the artists from this area or that are in this area truly rival the world creatively. So it’s a beautiful music scene in that sense.”
And it’s one people want to join.
“What I’ve heard from people in the music business is if they’re not in the Raleigh market, they want to be in this market,” said current Mayor Janet Cowell.
“So I think it’s incumbent on us to have that conversation,” she said. “To see how we maximize that for both the citizens here and the sort of experiences they’re able to have, but also for the economics of the city and branding and competing with other larger markets.”
