Pilgrimage Festival 2024: Dave Matthews, Noah Kahan, Hozier and NEEDTOBREATHE lead 10th anniversary lineup
The lineup for the 10th anniversary of the Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival includes headliners Dave Matthews Band, Noah Kahan, Hozier and NEEDTOBREATHE.
Additional performers slated for the weekend-long festival include Lukas Nelson, Allison Russell, Stephen Sanchez, Better Than Ezra and Grace Bowers & the Hodge Podge.
Set for Sept. 28-29 once again at The Park at Harlinsdale in Franklin, Tn., this year's festival was a special one for event producer Kevin Griffin.
"For the 10th anniversary, we wanted to be forward-thinking and look at what the festival is now and will be in the future, but with an eye toward the past," Griffin told The Tennessean. "We wanted to have some artists who had played Pilgrimage before, like Dave (Matthews) who played in 2021. He’s part of the family, so it made sense to have him again.”
Griffin added that Hozier was slated to play Pilgrimage in 2018, the year the festival was rained out.
“To be able to also add newer artists like Stephen Sanchez, Chance Pena and Miles Smith is super exciting,” he said.
Producers work to improve Pilgrimage Festival each year
In addition to working on his ideal lineup of musicians, Griffin and event co-producers W. Brandt Wood and Michael Whelan are also working to revamp several areas of the festival. He said festival goers can expect to see improvements to the children’s Fun Farm area and the VIP experience.
“We heard people loud and clear with the VIP experience,” he said. “We’re putting so much more into the VIP area. The first few years we were like with your ticket you get free alcohol and wondered why we were going in the red every year. It was great but we can’t afford to do it. But we overcorrected a bit. We heard that people love the VIP opportunity, but they felt they were not getting enough. We’re learning every year and the 10th year we are getting the VIP experience right.”
Construction on Franklin Road is complete – will help festival ingress and egress
Additional improvements to the festival this year include things Griffin has wished for years would come to fruition such as widening on Franklin Road, the addition of sidewalks between Harlinsdale and downtown Franklin and a pedestrian bridge allowing walking access to neighborhoods on the back side of the festival grounds.
“The things we’ve always wanted to happen are finally there,” he said. “The construction on Franklin Road is finished, it’s three lanes, we have the pedestrian bridge over the Harpeth River open... All those things we were like ‘one day,’ we finally have.”
Two-day general admission, two-day VIP, single-day general admission, single-day VIP and parking passes will be available at pilgrimagefestival.frontgatetickets.com beginning March 21.Tickets will be tiered with limited quantities available at each price level.
Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at [email protected], on X @HurtMelonee or Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Pilgrimage Festival 2024 lineup: Dave Matthews, Noah Kahan and Hozier
