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Starfest Announces New Location
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Just two days after the city manager of Plano, Texas, notified Starfest Music Festival that its license agreement was terminated, event organizers have officially nailed down a new venue. The festival is calling the relocation a win, thanks to more amenities and cheaper ticket prices for fans.
The quick venue change is all the more impressive seeing as how the debut edition of Starfest is scheduled in just a few weeks. The Sept. 8-9 festival will now take place in Grand Prairie, Texas, at Lone Star Park At Grand Prairie.
“The public has spoken and we have listened very carefully! You want this show to happen and we feel that this new venue will give you a far better experience than we originally anticipated. By moving locations, we have come into some unexpected positives that will make our festival goers quite happy,” Starfest said in a statement on its website.
– Starfest Music Festival
The website boasts that making the move from Plano’s Oak Point Park to Lone Star Park has given the festival more parking spaces; closer parking; added attendance capacity; an additional stage; added air conditioning; the ability to add a firework show; access to a BMX/skateboard park; and better viewing, sound and restrooms. Lonestar Park also has reduced noise ordinances and reduced traffic congestion. The festival has also added chairs and VIP suits and will be offering all-inclusive premium buffets, all-inclusive alcohol packages, private luxury boxes, and reserved general admission seating.
Starfest is passing on its reduced costs for infrastructure, labor and parking, as well as rental fees, to ticket buyers by cutting costs by almost 50 percent.
A representative for Starfest told Pollstar that the festival voluntarily refunded all ticket buyers who had previously purchased tickets for the Plano edition as soon as they knew there would be a location change. Ticket sales have now resumed, starting at $49 for single-day GA admission. Two-day passes star at $90. The quoted prices do not include applicable fees.
The initial lineup features Lil Wayne, Carnage, Flo Rida, Machine Gun Kelly, and Kylee Renee Clark.
As previously reported, Plano city manager Bruce Glasscock notified Starfest via email Aug. 16 that the festival’s license agreement with Plano was terminated immediately “because Starfest is in material breach of the license agreement, and that breach is incurable,” according to correspondence obtained by the Dallas Observer.
The email explains that Starfest had not complied with a stipulation in the license agreement that said the festival and city had to mutually agree on the headliners, in addition to providing “executed artist contracts to the city at least 48 hours prior to Starfest making any public announcement of the festival.”
Starfest had been given a deadline of receiving the artist contracts by 5 p.m. at Aug. 16, the Observer reported.