Connecticut’s Soundside Festival Canceled for 2025 Amid Unspecified Challenges

Fans were taken aback when the well-liked Soundside Music Festival in Connecticut abruptly cancelled its star-studded event two months prior to its opening day.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, [the] Soundside Music Festival has been cancelled,” the festival’s organisers said in a statement posted on its official website on Friday. “Tickets will be refunded to the original method of payment in as little as 30 days depending on your bank’s processing time.”

The festival’s organisers did not specify the reason for the cancellation.

Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim’s top administrative officer, Thomas Gaudett, claimed the event was experiencing ticket sales issues.

“It’s our understanding that this year’s lineup was drawing a lot fewer attendees than we have seen in the last few years,” Gaudett stated. “And that may have had an impact on the decision to cancel.”

Bridgeport officials claimed to have been taken by surprise by the cancellation, claiming that the city was “not involved in the decision-making process” and that they were informed the project was being cancelled once the decision was “finalised,” the outlet continued.

The festival was first planned for Seaside Park in Bridgeport on September 27 and 28. A huge roster of alternative and electronic dance performers, such as The Killers, Weezer, Hozier, Vampire Weekend, Alex Warren, and DJO, has already been revealed.

Following the news, the festival deleted all of its social media accounts, including its Facebook and Instagram pages, which together had more than 52,000 followers.

According to a public Facebook fan group for the festival, ticket prices have been the subject of complaints from fans in recent months.

The Soundside Music Festival’s now-deleted ticket page said that general admission for a single day of the festival started at $170.

One Facebook user mused on the fan page, “Maybe if they weren’t so greedy with the high ticket cost there would have been higher volume of tickets sold.”

Another said, ““I personally wasn’t into the lineup this year, but everyone has different taste.”

Despite the late departure of the Foo Fighters, 57,000 concertgoers packed the waterfront festival last year, setting a new attendance record. Authorities had anticipated 32,000 attendees.

Following frontman Dave Grohl’s admission that he had cheated on his wife, Jordyn Blum, and had a daughter outside of marriage, the Foo Fighters pulled out of the headline performance.

Dave Matthews, Stevie Nicks, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and John Mayer were among the previous headliners.

Produced by Live Nation, developer Howard Saffan, and producers Tom Russell and Jordan Wolowitz of Governor’s Ball, the first Sound on Sound festival took place in 2022 and was later renamed the Soundside Music Festival last year.