MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Marquette Area Blues Society announced that the 20th Anniversary Marquette Area Blues Fest will be taking place Labor Day Weekend 2024, but that it will be the last year for the festival.
MABS says that with the final festival, they plan to bring back favorite and new acts to Marquette, including multiple Grammy and Blues Music Award Nominees. The full lineup will be announced in the coming weeks.
On the festival coming to a close, MABS said:
While we are proud of our many years of success in supporting and presenting blues music in the Upper Peninsula, we also must acknowledge that “the times they are a’changing”. In that spirit, the MABS Board of Directors has decided that 2024 will be the final Marquette Area Blues Fest.
Many factors went into the decision to make the 20th Blues Fest the final one. Most importantly, we wanted to go out strong and on our own terms, while we still have a little gas in the tank.
We are a small, but dedicated and passionate group of blues lovers, and to put it bluntly, we’re not getting any younger. Most of us have been involved in planning and executing the fest for the entire twenty years, and over the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult to host and present the festival to our standards.
Other factors that came into play include the rising expenses of all elements of producing the festival and the continuing challenge of attracting and retaining the volunteers needed to execute the festival.
However, MABS said the group itself is not ending, but shifting their focus and direction to follow their mission statement of promoting and preserving the uniquely American art form of blues music in the Upper Peninsula. They plan to host a blues music concert series of national touring and local blues performers quarterly at different venues around the central U.P., as well as expand their Bluesday Tuesday events at Peter White Public Library and grow their educational outreach programs.
For more information about the Marquette Area Blues Society, click here.
