Hot August Music Festival canceled due to low ticket sales, organizers say

The Hot August Music Festival in Cockeysville scheduled for next month has been canceled due to low ticket sales, organizers announced Monday.

The festival was set to take place at Oregon Ridge Park from Aug. 21-22, but organizers said in a news release that this year’s sales were not what they expected and is not sustainable. Organizers attributed the poor sales to disruptions in the live music landscape.

“The live music industry has undergone disruptive change and we are not immune from its effects,” organizers said in a news release. “We did everything we could to steward this festival, but we have to face the realities of the festival industry as it is today, not how we wish it was.”

Those who purchased tickets for this year’s show will receive a refund to their original form of payment. Tickets were going for $81.96 after early-bird sales ended on July 17. Artists and bands like Cory Wong, Galactic ft. Jelly Joseph, Vanessa Collier and Magoo were slated to perform.

The local music festival has been around since 1993 and has brought blues artists and bands from around the world, including Charlie Musselwhite, Carl Weathersby, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, and Magic Slim & The Teardrops, to Baltimore County.

This isn’t the only music festival in Maryland to call it quits recently. The city of Salisbury canceled the Maryland Folk Festival in May, citing funding challenges. The Charm City Bluegrass Festival was canceled last year and put on an indefinite hiatus after organizers said their team did not have the resources needed to produce the event.

There are still several other summer music festivals happening across Maryland this August, including First Thursday and Subscape in Baltimore and Music City Maryland in Catonsville.