Voodoo Experience Called Off For Third Year; Future In Doubt

Voodoo Music + Arts Experience announced the festival “will take a pause” in 2022, marking the third year the event is canceled and throwing its future in doubt.

Unlike its “pause” announcement in 2021, Voodoo Experience did not suggest it will return next year. 

Produced by Live Nation and C3 Presents, Voodoo last took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, and is a much-loved Halloween event in New Orleans and beyond. 

Guns N’ Roses, Post Malone and Beck last headlined Voodoo, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018. 

The festival began in 1999 as a single-day event in New Orleans’ City Park and featured Third Eye Blind and Wyclef Jean.

The 2018 edition marked a watershed for Voodoo, according to NOLA.com, featuring Mumford & Sons, Travis Scott, Janelle Monae and Arctic Monkey and attracting an estimated 180,000 – an increase of some 20% over 2016 and 2017, which themselves were big increases over previous year, the website reports. 

New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival, the French Quarter Festival and the BUKU Music + Art Project all returned in 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And the Essence Festival of Culture is set for an in-person comeback in July.