The Sasquatch! Music Festival has announced the event will not return in 2019, Willamette Week reports. Founder Adam Zacks announced the festival’s demise via an email June 28.
“Today we take a bow and bid fond farewell to Sasquatch!,” he wrote. “I will no longer be producing the Festival, nor will it take place in 2019.”
Zacks founded Sasquatch in 2002, which took place annually at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Wash. According to Rolling Stone, last year’s event, which was held over Memorial Day weekend, hosted acts Bon Iver, the National and Modest Mouse.
Sasquatch has shown signs of economic trouble for years. In 2014, the festival attempted to host two events, one during Memorial Day weekend and a second on Fourth of July, with the July event canceled due to faltering interest. Then in 2016, according to The Oregonian, festival attendance numbers dropped by half.
In his email, Zacks wrote about the festival’s long run: “17 years is a long time to do anything. The Beatles lasted a mere 8 years, a fact so astonishing it is difficult to believe. While we didn’t accomplish anything as indelible as ‘Hey Jude,’ the festival left a lasting mark and proudly represented an independent spirit.”
“Sasquatch! will forever remain a tapestry of the people who worked with us, the artists who inspired us, and the varied experiences of the fans who attended it… of friendships made, engagements, hilltop weddings, permanent tattoos, once in a lifetime collaborations, weather events both treacherous and magnificent, at least one very public conception and, of course, hundreds of awe-inspiring performances. My humblest gratitude to you all.”
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