SunFest 2024 cuts spending on big music acts by $1M, brings in local bands, high schools

To stop the financial bleeding of Palm Beach County’s biggest annual music event, SunFest organizers have cut its music budget for big acts by more than $1 million in 2024. It also will bring in local bands and even try to book high-schoolers.

Organizers hope their lower-cost emphasis on local talent will reverse declining attendance. They will also cut ticket prices and bring back its third stage as well as the Art Village, a cluster of booths where artists sell their wares.

It's all part of an effort to turn things around for the downtown West Palm Beach waterfront multiday festival, which has lost more than $6 million over the past seven years while hiking prices, cutting days, booking fewer musical acts and removing longtime attractions.

More: SunFest has been in the red $1M per festival for years. Ticket prices have doubled. Why?

What local talent, bands can we expect at SunFest 2024?

"Talent will be straight from the community, engaging groups such as Dreyfoos School of the Arts and School of Rock, along with hyperlocal bands to highlight approximately 20 acts," SunFest Executive Director Dianna Craven said.

School of Rock is a music education franchise with locations in Palm Beach County. Organizers are discussing other ideas for local acts such as drum lines, dance groups and vocal ensembles, she said.

While SunFest 2023 cut the number of stages to two, SunFest 2024 will restore the third stage and reserve it for local acts. The other two stages will feature better-known bands and artists, but not the expensive ones Craven says drive up ticket prices.

"While The Killers put on an incredible performance for us this past year, SunFest is a community festival and we simply can’t afford to pay for bands at that price point," Craven said. Fans can instead expect 32 less costly acts like past performers Boyz II Men, Lil Wayne, AJR, Slightly Stoopid or Counting Crows, she said.

More: For Dreyfoos students, chance to rock on stage with Gwen Stefani 'different kind of pressure'

Tickets for SunFest 2024 in West Palm Beach

Festival organizers started selling adult three-day advance tickets at $100 from Nov. 23-28 at SunFest.com, cheaper than the 2023 early bird pricing of $130.

“Our surveys tell us that we got a little too high on our price point,” Craven said. “We’re working hard to bring that down this year.” It's the earliest SunFest has ever started selling advance tickets.

Single-day advance adult tickets are $60, and other tickets will be cheaper than 2023 prices, including gate prices, Craven said.

Advance all-days ticket prices have doubled since 2015. The nonprofit festival has had to raise rates to pay the ever-rising prices musical acts charge, former Director Paul Jamieson has said.

Why did SunFest 2023 cut Art Village, other attractions?

The plan for SunFest 2023 was to bring in big crowds by delivering the big artists attendees said they wanted, Jamieson said in April, while cutting attractions such as the Sunday night fireworks show and the Art Village, a cluster of tented booths in which local artists sold paintings, ornaments, clothes, jewelry and other colorful work.

Attendance fell to 75,000 this year — less than SunFest 2022 and less than half of each festival from 2013 to 2017. This year's festival lost $1.6 million, Craven said. She blamed the drop in attendance on SunFest shrinking to three days from four in 2022. Before 2018, it ran for five days.

SunFest 2023 made just under $5.9 million, Craven said, about $160,000 more than 2022. But it cost more than $7.5 million, which was about $100,000 more expensive than last year.

The festival spent $3.3 million on musical acts, more than half a million dollars less than 2022. It will cut that spending to $2 million in 2024, Craven said. “If we spend too much on talent, it unfortunately drives the cost of ticket prices up,” said Craven, who succeeded Jamieson in July.

The festival will still be three days.

Bands and artists in Palm Beach County and across Florida who want to perform at SunFest 2024 can find more information at https://www.sunfest.com/how-to-perform.

SunFest 2024 will also bring back its Art Village this year. “That’s something we heard loud and clear from those that attended last year that they missed,” Craven said. The fireworks show, however, is not budgeted.

SunFest 2024 will run May 3-5. It will be the 40th SunFest. The festival started in 1982 but was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Who is playing SunFest 2024? Here is the music lineup

This year's headliners include Nelly, Billy Idol, Cole Swindell, Yung Gravy, Third Eye Blind and Rebelution. See full lineup up here: Billy Idol, Nelly, Shaggy revealed in SunFest's 2024 lineup

SunFest 2024: Hours, location, schedule

When: May 3 through 5, 2024

Where: 101 S. Clematis St., West Palm Beach - Along the Intracoastal Waterway in downtown West Palm Beach. The festival grounds are officially on Flagler Drive in between Banyan Boulevard and Lakeview Avenue.

Chris Persaud is the data reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at cpersaud@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: SunFest 2024: West Palm Beach waterfront festival cuts cost on music