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SALT LAKE CITY — Love Letters, a new music festival announced earlier this year, is leaving Utah indie fans with a broken heart.
The festival's organizers announced Tuesday that the three-day festival, which was slated to be held in Salt Lake City next month, has been canceled. Refunds were to be "processed automatically" from 24tix.
"With a heavy heart, we are announcing that Love Letters Festival will no longer be able to move forward as planned," event organizers wrote in the post. "This is something we have wanted to bring to Salt Lake City for so long, and we are sorry this dream could not become a reality."
S&S Presents announced the festival back in May and had been promoting it all the way up until recently. It was to bring in dozens of indie favorites, including Joji, Quinn XCII and Ashnikko, that would play at Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City from Sept. 27-29.
Nic Smith, managing director of S&S Presents, told KSLNewsRadio on Wednesday that there with multiple factors that led to its demise — mirroring some global music festival trends.
"We encountered a few issues that we just weren't able to resolve and had to make the difficult decision to cancel," he said, adding it's unclear if the company will give it another try next year.
Fewer music festivals will be held this year, and it has people wondering why the decline. At least 50 music festivals were canceled in the United Kingdom this year alone, Sky News reported in June. Industry experts told the outlet that the music festival industry hasn't fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising costs have put it "under more financial strain than ever."
At least 10 festivals had been canceled in the U.S. by March, when the outlet Insurance Journal also wrote about the issue. Experts told the outlet that rising costs, including the cost of bringing in artists to perform, was a big factor for canceled festivals. However, they noted some festivals have been stronger than ever.
S&S Presents' decision doesn't impact other events that S&S Presents oversees in Utah. The company oversees both the Salt Lake City and Ogden Twilight Concert Series, as well as the Kilby Block Party. The latter's 2025 lineup is "coming soon," according to its website.
Contributing: Mary Culbertson
