The Strokes, Florence + The Machine, Tyler, the Creator to Headline Governors Ball

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Santiago Bluguermann/LatinContent/Getty Images – Julian Casablancas Performs At Lollapalooza Argentina
Julian Casabalancas of The Strokes performs at Lollapalooza Argentina in 2017.
Governors Ball will return to New York City’s Randall’s Island Park for a ninth year this summer with a bill topped by The Strokes, Florence + The Machine and Tyler, the Creator.
The festival’s lineup, announced Monday, also includes Lil Wayne, SZA, Nas, The 1975, Kacey Musgraves, Brockhampton, Louis the Child, Mitski, The Internet, Kaytranada, Jorja Smith and Blood Orange.
The three-day festival runs from May 31 to June 2. For today only, tickets are on sale for a special “Announce Day” price of $275 for a GA pass.
In headlining Sunday, The Strokes will traverse familiar territory: The legendary New York rockers topped the festival’s bill in 2016. The Voidz, the side project of Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas, will perform Friday.
Casablancas and Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. both released albums in 2018 and toured on their own. The Strokes last performed together in April 2017; their Governors Ball date marks their first announced gig of 2019.
The lineup also marks noteworthy ascensions to headliner status for Florence + The Machine and Tyler, the Creator. Florence, who released her fourth album High as Hope in 2018, appeared on the festival poster’s top line when she last played it in 2015, but only occupied a penultimate slot on the main stage. But she headlined festivals including Outside Lands and Denver’s inaugural Grandoozy in 2018, and headlined Brooklyn’s Barclays Center last October for a gross of $1.25 million.
Tyler, the Creator’s booking suggests viability as a headliner in 2019; in September, Miami’s III Points Festival announced the Odd Future dynamo would top the bill of their 2019 edition, slated for February. Over two nights at New York’s Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in February 2018, Tyler sold 10,912 tickets for a gross of $421,509.
Meanwhile, Brockhampton, the rap group who dropped out of the 2018 lineup days before the event, appears near the top of Friday’s slate.
“To bring our hometown its first big sustainable annual music festival, it was always Tom [Russell] and my North Star if you will,” Jordan Wolowitz, who runs Governors Ball producer Founders Entertainment along with Russell, told Pollstar in 2018. Founders Entertainment partnered with Live Nation in 2016.
“In terms of on the ground level, it’s still Founders Entertainment running the show,” Wolowitz told Pollstar. “If you come by our office in East Village in Manhattan, there’s 10 of us working full-time on the festival. We’re a part of the Live Nation family, and we’re very happy about that partnership, but on the day-to-day level it’s still run like a small business.”
Launched in 2011, Governors Ball moved to Randall’s Island in 2012. It has since become an institution, grossing $5.28 million in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available. According to a study published by Governors Ball in 2017, that year’s event generated $62.4 million in benefits to the New York economy.
“We have a great relationship the city,” Wolowitz said. “As the festival was growing over the years, they took pride in the way that they were working with a local, homegrown small business.”
Governors Ball has endured adversity, ending one of its days early in 2013 due to inclement weather, and cancelling Sunday of its 2016 event — including a headlining set from Kanye West — for the same reason. And it has weathered non-meteorological challenges as well, facing competition from Goldenvoice’s Panorama Music Festival, which has been held annually at the same venue since 2016.
That same year, Founders launched The Meadows, which took place at Queens’ Flushing Meadows Corona Park in 2016 and 2017. Though the event took 2018 off, promoters say they’re “aiming for a return in 2019.”
In 2018, Jack White, Travis Scott and Eminem headlined Governors Ball, topping a lineup that also included Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Post Malone, Shawn Mendes, Halsey, N.E.R.D, Khalid, CHVRCHES and Lil Uzi Vert.
Tickets for the event are on sale now. See Governors Ball’s poster and alphabetized lineup below.
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Courtesy of Founders Entertainment – Governors Ball 2019 poster
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070 Shake
The 1975
Aaron Aye
Amber Mark
Bazzi
Beast Coast (Joey Bada$$ + Flatbush Zombies)
Blood Orange
Bob Moses
Brockhampton
Calpurnia
Cautious Clay
Charli XCX
Chelsea Cutler
Clairo
Deal Casino
Dennis Lloyd
Denzel Curry
Dreamers
Easy Life
Elohim
Florence + The Machine
Gesaffelstein
Hippo Campus
Hundredth
The Internet
Jack Harlow
Jeremy Zucker
Jessie Reyez
Jorja Smith
Kacey Musgraves
Kaytranada
King Princess
Kirk Knight
Lily Allen
Lil Wayne
Lord Huron
Louis the Child
Major Lazer
Miles Kane
MKULTRA
Mitski
Mø
Nas
Njomza
Noname
Nyck Caution
Parcels
Playboy Carti
Ravyn Lenae
Ric Wilson
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Saba
Shaed
Sheck Wes
SOB x RBE
Soccer Mommy
Still Woozy
The Strokes
Sunflower Bean
Suzi Wu
SZA
Taylor Bennett
Tobi Lou
Ty Dolla $ign
Tyler, the Creator
The Underachievers
U.S. Girls
Vince Staples
The Voidz
Zhu
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