Minutes published from a recent Okeechobee County Board of Commissioners meeting confirm that the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival will not return for a 2019 iteration. Electronic music speculation source, Festival Owl (@TheFestiveOwl) tweeted out the minutes from the board’s November 8 meeting. “Have a meeting with the Okeechobee Music Festival people on November 13th,” reads the eighth bullet on the list of topics canvassed during the meeting. “There will be no festival in 2019.”

For many, the news of the Florida festival’s dormancy will not arrive as a surprise—a lack of key operational details related to the event’s 2019 installment led many to speculate that Okeechobee would not host an ensuing edition. Festival organizers’ failure to announce dates for Okeechobee 2019, ticket sale information, and the first phase of a lineup initially prompted suspicion that the festival was flirting with impending cancellation. Despite maintaining ownership of the land that serves as the site of Okeechobee, the festival’s parent company, Soundslinger LLC, had also reportedly laid off employees and remained “shuttered since Labor Day,” rendering the identity of who would assume the 2019 festival rights unclear. Evidently, none of these preliminary signs boded well for the festival, which will leave a noticeable gap in Florida festival season programming.

Update #7 — Official minutes from 11/8 meeting now reflect that no festival is happening in 2019. pic.twitter.com/bLAcdrs022

— Festive Owl (@TheFestiveOwl) November 20, 2018

H/T: EDM Sauce

Tags: cancelled, okeechobee, Okeechobee County Board of Commissioners, Okeechobee Festival

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