The once-crowded New York music festival landscape will feature one less event this summer as Panorama will go on hiatus in 2019, with plans to revive the fest in 2020 at a different location.
The AEG and Goldenvoice-produced festival took place from 2016 to 2018 at New York’s Randall’s Island, the same site that has housed rival Governors Ball since 2012.
In a statement Friday to Billboard, Panorama organizers confirmed that the festival is “taking a hiatus” in 2019 in order to continue efforts toward bringing Panorama to its originally envisioned home of Queens’ Flushing Meadows Corona Park, home of the 1939 World Fair.
“We had a fantastic experience with Paul Simon this past September at Flushing Meadows and look forward to returning in the future,” AEG said in the statement.
“We were disappointed in NYC Parks denial of our permit application despite the long term benefits this event would deliver to the community and the park. While we have enjoyed our time on Randall’s Island and its great facilities, we feel that we have achieved all that we can at this site. We look forward to continued conversations with City Parks to explore making the Flushing Meadows site a reality. Until then, we thank the fans and artists who supported the event for the last 3 years of fantastic performances.”
A severe weather warning marred the 2018 Panorama, forcing the cancellation of the entire Friday lineup, including sets by the Weeknd, Migos and Dua Lipa.
Panorama isn’t the only music festival with hopes of setting up its stages in Flushing Meadows, which would mark the culmination of a years-old turf war: The Meadows festival – similarly planned for the Corona Park site but instead staged outside the Mets’ Citi Field in 2016 and 2017 – revealed that its 2018 festival had been canceled due to permit issues related to the Flushing site. The Meadows was produced by the Live Nation-owned Founders Entertainment, which also oversees Governors Ball.
With Panorama on hiatus and Meadows, as of press time, showing no progress toward their Flushing efforts, Governors Ball is currently the lone major music festival planned for the New York metropolitan area this summer.