News/Announcements: Bumbershoot Arts & Music Festival Announces 2024 Lineup

Summer is just around the corner. And you know what that means? More Summer Festival announcements, y’all.

Seattle‘s Bumbershoot Arts & Music Festival is a partnership between the following:

Third Stone, a non-profit whose mission is to help foster an inclusive, energized, and sustainable arts economy in the Pacific Northwest through festival, artistic, spectacle and community-driven programming. Their primary purpose is to produce a festival over Labor Day Weekend that is equitably programmed, affordably priced — and accessible to all.

Third Stone is also home to Bumbershoot’s workforce development program, which is made possible with support from the Washington State Department of Commerce, City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Seattle Center, The Schultz Family Foundation and generous community members. The workforce development program provides critical business skills to young people aged 17-25 using a “festival as classroom” philosophy. Inspired by and collaborating with Berkeley, CA‘s The UC Theatre’s Concert Career Pathways Program, Third Stone’s program focuses on serving young people from underserved communities. Third Stone supports program participants with job placement in the creative encamp and 80% of graduates are currently working in their area of interest. Through additional partnerships with The Crocodile, The Showbox and local non-profits like KEXP, The Vera Project, Friends of the Waterfront, TeenTix and others, Third Stone works collectively to build a more equitable and sustainable creative arts ecosystem. You can learn more about Bumbershoot’s Workforce Development Program or apply when applications open this fall, by checking out the website here.

Seattle Center is an active civic, arts, and family gathering place in the core of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, whose mission is to create exceptional events, experiences and environments, which delight and inspire the human inspire to build stronger communities. Centered around the International Fountain, Seattle Center’s 74-acre campus is part of Seattle’s Uptown Arts & Cultural District — and is home to Climate Pledge Arena and more than 30 cultural, educational, sports and entertainment organizations, as well as a broad range of public and community programs.

New Rising Sun, at team of seasoned concert promoters and visual arts producers dedicated to supercharging the Bumbershoot brand. They manage and operate Bumbershoot on behalf of Third Stone.

Amazon, a company all of y’all know about. Since their founding in Bellevue, WA 30 years ago, the company and the Puget Sound has been intertwined. They’re committed to taking a hands-on approach to tackling the important issues facing their hometown and region, like affordable housing and hunger. By investing in long-term solutions and working side-by-side with community partners, they’re building a better tomorrow for everyone across the region. You can learn more about their commitments to the Pacific Northwest, here.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get to the business at hand, right?

Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival is a full-spectrum arts and music experience — from punk to performance art, ballet to wrestling, pole dancing to roller skater, food to fashion, and all manner of ingenuity in between — that celebrates the Pacific Northwest’s unique culture. Celebrating creators and innovators of all kinds, the festival breaks stereotypes, champions a more inclusive art community and bets on the dreamers, makers and performers who call the Pacific Northwest home.

First produced at Seattle Center back in 1971, Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival is the Washington State’s legacy arts and music festival, made for community by community. The festival believes that everyone in the region — from individuals to corporations — has a role to play in supporting the power and vitality of the arts, which is why they amplify the Pacific Northwest’s creative community, cultivating professional opportunities for artists, welcoming diverse crowds by the hundreds of thousands, and training the next generation of event producers. They strive to be accessible as possible — whether in their programming, their physical footprint, through subsidized ticket prices and countless other ways.

The 51st edition of Bumbershoot Arts & Music will take place at the Seattle Center during Labor Day Weekend — August 31, 2024 – September 1, 2024. The festival has a storied history of being unafraid to pair beloved legacy artists with emerging artists on the come-up, as well some of the best of the region. The festival’s organizers and partners announced the lineup for the 51st edition, curated by returning Bumbershoot veteran talent buyer Chris Porter, who helmed the festival’s lineup from 1997-2016. And keeping with that storied history and tradition, 2024’s music lineup continues that eclecticism featuring indie rock legends Pavement and British singer/songwriter and genre-bending producer James Blake as headliners. Acclaimed folk-rock/indie rock singer/songwriters Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett, pop-rock duo Aly & AJ, Grammy-nominated emcee Freddie Gibbs and the legendary Kim Gordon will also play the festival.

This year’s lineup will also feature a collection of internationally and nationally-renowned acts including Toronto‘s BADBADNOTGOOD, CHVRCHES‘ Lauren Mayberry, hip-hop legends Cypress Hill, British house music legend Carl Cox, soul singer Lee Fields, as well as Mercury Rev, Ted Leo and The Pharmacists, The Polyphonic Spree, a rare pairing of singer/songwriters Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird, and goth icons Lol Tolhurst x Budgie.

Lastly, the festival will feature sets from a handful of rapidly rising acts including Squirrel Flower, Moor Mother, JOVM mainstays Psymon Spine and Corridor, Automatic and Disq. (The full lineup can be viewed in the festival poster graphic, but it’ll also be below — for the olds.)

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At the center of the festival is their robust Visual Arts program. Bumbershoot’s 2024 Visual Arts program will showcase some of the region’s most talented artists. This year, the festival is reinforcing its commitment to the regional community with the return of fan favorites like the Fashion District, Out of Sight exhibit and a film program, while introducing new programming that includes a partnership with NASA and more. The Visual Arts program will also feature the following:

The newly launched Animation District. While being a part of the larger Arts Programming lineup, the Animation District will host a wide array of exciting installments around the Seattle Center Campus including in-person presentations from the director of the Oscar-nominated Nimona, the VFX supervisor and Production Designer of the Oscar-nominated Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the writer/director of Netflix‘s highly-anticipated Ultraman: Rising and the VFX and Visualization Supervisors of Sony Pictures Entertainment‘s upcoming Harold and the Purple Crayon. This year will see the inaugural Bigfoot Deepfake Competition, an international competition, which welcomes participates to submit their best deepfakes of Bigfoot as a comedic and harrowing portrait of current deepfake tech. Also in the Animation District, experimental animator and artist Stefan Gruber directs Rock, Paper, Scissors – a material-based group film program. Other programs in this district include augmented reality, gaming, contemporary art animations, a youth animation program curated by Orion Razat, and film screenings, all previewing a soon-to-be-announced 2025 Animation Festival.

The Century 21 District, which will bring a transcendent and awe-inspiring experience to festival attendees. The mid-century designed courtyard will be populated with a Sculpture Parking Lot, featuring large-scale contemporary sculpture. “Songs for Space,” a partnership with NASA inspired by the legendary Golden Record placed on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 will project James Webb Space Telescope images in the PACCAR IMAX theater alongside a range of different vocal groups, including gospel, opera and Gregorian chanting. “Songs for Space” creates the immersive environment of deep space paired with live vocalists — and is meant to convey the depth and diversity of Earth’s many cultures and our relationship to the heavens.

The Recess District will feature roller-skating, gymnastics, breakdancing, double-dutch and cheerleading. Seattle-based skate shop 35th North leads a skateboard competition on a newly commissioned half-pipe by Dope Planet, The Bumbermania! wrestling showcase returns and will be curated by Grit City Wrestling School. The Recess District is also home to the BumBeershoot Craft Beer Garden, where festival-goers of legal age can enjoy some of the finest selections of local speciality and craft beers.

The Fashion District will showcase a wide range of performances, vendors and runway shows from the region’s apparel designers and fashion talents. Festival-goers should expect vintage, contemporary and the avant-garde, hair and nail art, jewelry and more.

Out of Sight, a large-scale group exhibition of contemporary art in the Pacific Northwest,. Located in the Fisher Pavilion and throughout the Seattle Center Campus, the group show represents an annual survey of contemporary visual arts from across the region that blends commercial and non-commercial art, installation and new media presented by at team of regional curators.

Geodesic Domes, a constellation of micro-environments that will include a new Comedy Dome, curated by Seattle-based comedian, writer and disability rights activity Dan Hurwitz. The Cat Circus will return with new death-defying stunts and the Pole Pavilion will celebrate the art of pole dancing throughout the region. Festival-goers can head to the surreal Wig Farm and pick a new head of hair from a garden of wigs.

Art Not Terminal Gallery presents If You Know You Know, a group photography exhibit documenting three underground music communities from the Pacific Northwest.

Bumbershoot TV (BTV) invites regionally-based musicians to submit original music videos as part of the Exceptionally Underrated film series at the Seattle International Film Festival. The creators of the video named best in show will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Bumbershoot’s Free-Range Artists, which will feature traditional Lion Dancing to contemporary performance roaming the festival grounds, along with a variety of performances and installations woven into the fabric of the audience. “Kind of Important Seating” and a Kissing Booth are also part of this spontaneous and interactive program.

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Bumbershoot’s Culinary Arts Program continues the festival’s community-driven mission with focused food, brewery and wintery offerings aiming to celebrate, challenge, comfort, have fun, uplift and indulge — and the lineup includes over 29 different restaurants and 26 different wineries and breweries, including Local Tide and Mustang, both of which were recently featured in The New York Times‘ list of Seattle’s Best Restaurants. Other offerings include Mamnoon Street Eats, Eva’s Wild, Gold Coast Ghal, MariPili Tapas Bar, Ballard Pizza, Co., Big Max Burger, Co., Indigo Cow and a list of others. Check out https://www.bumbershoot.com for a full list of participating restaurants and more.

Full Music Lineup

Acid Tongue, All Them Witches, Aly & AJ, Angélica Garcia, Automatic, BADBADNOTGOOD, Balthvs, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Carl Cox, Corridor, Courtney Barnett, Cunningham / Bird, Cypress Hill, Dean Johnson, Disq, Emi Pop, Flesh Produce, Freddie Gibbs, George Clanton, Gold Chisme, Grynch, Helado Negro, Hurray for the Riff Raff, I Dont Know How But They Found Me, James Blake, k.flay, Kassa Overall, Kim Gordon, King Buffalo, Kultur Shock, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Ladytron, Lauren Mayberry, Lee Fields, Lemon Boy, Linda from Work, Lol Tolhurst x Budgie, Marc Rebillet, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Mercury Rev, Moor Mother, NAVVI, Neal Francis, Oh, Rose, Parisalexa, Pavement, Pink Siifu, Pom Pom Squad, Psymon Spine, Pure Bathing Culture, R E P O S A D O, Rocket, Spoon Benders, Squirrel Flower, St Paul and the Broken Bones, Stephanie Anne Johnson, Sux, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, TEKE::TEKE, The Divorce, The Groovy Nobody, The Polyphonic Spree, Thee Sacred Souls, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, Tres Leches, Warren Dunes.

Ticketing Information

$70 Single Day Pass and $125 Two Day Pass are available and currently on sale at www.bumbershoot.com