C3 and Festival Republic Will Present

Updated:

January 11, 2017 11:27 am

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C3 Presents, known for resurrecting Lollapalooza back in 2005 in Chicago’s Grant Park and running Austin City Limits Festival, has teamed up with notable U.K. festival producer Melvin Benn’s Festival Republic to launch the Vineland Music Festival next year.

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The festival, rumored since August, will take place next August 8-10 in Vineland, N.J. at a 500 acre privately-owned farm about 40 minutes outside Philadelphia.

C3 partner, Charlie Jones, told Billboard.biz, “For our company to be involved with [Benn] who more or less has inspired the American festival movement as we know it today is an honor for us.”

Benn, Festival Republic’s Managing Director, has been responsible for several significant European festivals ranging from the Reading Festival in 1989, drawing a crowd of 80,000, to the Leeds Festival in 1999, to the Latitude Festival in Henham Park in 2006. It was in 2002, that Benn added the Glastonbury Festival to his resume and took on part ownership. Glastonbury now has a capacity of 177,500.

Jones, who was inspired by the Glastonbury Festival, has been working hard with Benn to bring a European-Style festival to the area. They want to merge Benn’s idea of a European camping festival with C3’s idea of an American festival, with a more “urban green space feel.”

The festival, which was originally desired for downtown Philly, will host a Bonnaroo size crowd of around 80,000. “The community of Vineland, including the mayor, is very supportive and excited to have this in their community,” says Jones. And like Bonnaroo, it should be positive economic boost for the area.

Although the Vineland festival will be rock-oriented, they expect the music to be diverse in hopes attracting an array of attendees. As for the bands, the offers have been sent out, but none have confirmed.