Against All Odds: How Governors Ball, Celebrating 15 Years, Became NYC’s Top Major Music Festival

To say that Governors Ball has faced its share of adversity would be a vast understatement. The trials and travails the New York City festival has navigated over the course of its wild 15-year ride across four different venues are numerous and include, but are not limited to: storms of both of the tropical and thunder variety, a famed “Mud Ball,” Canadian wildfire smoke, a parking lot venue for two years, limited public transportation options, borrowing money from family and friends, re-sodding fields, an inconsiderate art fair, massive insurance deductibles, Reddit AMAs, an earthquake and far more.

When asked if he ever thought his festival was cursed, Tom Russell, Gov Ball’s indefatigable co-founder and prime mover, answers without hesitation, “Yes, all the time.”

And yet, despite overcoming so much adversity, or maybe precisely because it has moved upwards and onwards past so many difficulties, Governors Ball is currently enjoying its best years on record. Today, it is widely considered New York City’s premier major music festival with more major touring acts than any other current NYC festival.

Key to Gov Ball’s dramatic turnaround was its 2023 move to the idyllic Flushing Meadows Corona Park set in the diverse and wondrous borough of Queens, which followed two ignominious years situated in a paved parking lot in the shadow of nearby Citi Field. Since then, the festival has enjoyed record crowds, top-notch bookings and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans, city officials, industry and artists alike while attracting top tier talent.

Celebrating its decade and a half anniversary, this year’s impressive line-up includes Tyler, The Creator, Hozier, Benson Boone, Feid, BigXthaPlug, RAYE, Glass Animals, Clairo, Tyla, Conan Gray, Mt. Joy Royel Otis and one incredibly successful global rock-pop superstar making her North American festival headlining debut.

“I am honored to join the list of iconic Gov Ball headliners,” Olivia Rodrigo tells Pollstar. “I haven’t performed here since my shows at Madison Square Garden back in April ’24.” At all of 22 years young, Rodrigo’s “Guts World Tour” grossed $127 million on Pollstar’s 2024 Top 200 Worldwide charts. Her success is predicated on the strength of her fantastic shows which showcase her unique music amalgam forged of harder 90s indie rock and soaring pop anthems and led by her power vocals.

“Guts” marked an inflection point in Rodrigo’s touring career as she works her way towards stadiums. “Getting to play shows every night while doing the “Guts World Tour” gave me a lot of confidence that I didn’t have previously, With every show I play I feel like I get more comfortable being myself on stage,” she says. “I am so excited to be returning to New York to headline Gov Ball.” 

Rodrigo’s enthusiasm for Gov Ball, is something not often heard over the course of the fest’s challenging history, which began from the get-go. “Governors Ball,” as its named, is an anachronism and constant reminder of the numerous obstacles the fest faced. “After Gov Ball 2011, our first year, we found out that the venue, Governors Island, was going to be under an extensive renovation, and we had to find a new venue,” Russell says. So in 2012 Governors Ball, named for Governors Island, moved to Randall’s Island while keeping its original name.

Much of Governors Ball’s challenges were beyond its control and something of a fixed cost in putting on an outdoor festival in New York City, which at best is a risky proposition. Legions of promoters have tried and failed to mount an annual festival in the face of the City’s myriad challenges, which include a vast bureaucracy, limited public space, volatile weather, population density, transportation challenges, a packed sports and entertainment calendar and that special je ne sais quoi that can make daily life in NYC incredibly unpredictable.

The list of festivals that have tried to make it here and failed include: Lollapalooza, Field Day, All Points West, Tibetan Freedom Concert, The Great GoogaMooga, Panorama, 4Knots, All Tomorrow’s Parties, Northside Festival, Seaport Music Festival, Meadows Festival, CBGBs Festival (back this year thanks to Bowery Presents at the relatively new venue Under The K Bridge), Catalpa Festival, Siren Festival, the Red Bull Music Academy, CMJ Music Festival, The Macintosh New York Music Festival and Across the Narrows among others (while Bonnaroo N.E., Creamfields, Vineland never even got off the ground.).

As a promoter, entrepreneur, businessman and proud New Yorker, Russell personifies the word indefatigable, but with pragmatism, coolness in the face adversity and a sang froid matched by a preternatural ability to roll with the punches, remain steadfastly transparent and, above all else, keep moving forward. In 2019, when the fest was canceled because of encroaching weather, Russell did a Reddit AMA weather maps in hand. When the fest lost money in 2012 to the tune of $200K, Russell and his partners reached out to family and friends for bridge loans; when insurance rates became exorbitant, they moved to Queens.

“Tom is a calm, unflappable operator in a complex market,” says Charlie Walker, co-founder of C3, a subsidiary of Live Nation, which in 2016 acquired a majority stake in Founders Entertainment and Governors Ball, another key to the fest’s current success. “Since becoming a part of C3’s festival roster,” Walker continues, “we’ve been able to provide long-standing booking knowledge for Gov Ball’s current era.”

About that partnership, Russell says that as an independent festival promoter it was “challenging operationally. We heard that AEG was bringing a new festival to the market, Panorama, and we knew that the competitive landscape was going to get a lot more challenging. To be able to compete with a much bigger company in this festival business, we knew we had to align ourselves with another big one. And that’s when we started chatting with other companies out there. And our conversations with Live Nation led us to the joint venture.”

While it’s always a bonus for a festival to have C3 at its back, also helping forge Russell’s festival mettle was six years working under the tutelage of another successful music festival promoter.

“Superfly hired me out of college at Tulane,” Russell says. “I worked most closely with Rick Farman but also John Mayer, Rich Goodstone and Kerry Black—everything I knew about the festival world, I learned from them. And that knowledge was absolutely essential to us being able to pull off year one operationally and having that knowledge to navigate the trickiness that is the outdoor event business.”

It was while working at Superfly that Russell got the idea to attempt what many thought impossible. “I got to a point there where I hit my ceiling within the company and had always wanted to do my own thing,” Russell says. “I just couldn’t understand why my hometown of New York City didn’t have a music festival of its own, especially after you saw the rise of Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Outside Lands. I was at Superfly when they started Outside Lands with Another Planet and I was part of that process. And going through that lit a fire to bring a music festival to New York City. We just thought it was a really, really good time.”

By “we” Russell means his Gov Ball co-founders Jordan Wolowitz and Yoni Reisman. “Jordan and I went to high school together and he was working at ICM. And Yoni was an intern at Superfly who I became very close with. We were all the same age and at similar places in our lives and professionally and we just thought, ‘You know, if there’s a time to do it, it’s now. Let’s go for it.’”

And go for it they did, working their way to Randalls Island from 2012 through 2019, where it suffered some of its biggest setbacks, including storms, Mud Balls, transportation issues, resodding and, finally, onerous insurance premiums.   

Some fans, however, and some agents, recall those years rather fondly. “We have had multiple headliners at Gov Ball throughout the years,” says Cara Lewis founder and CEO of the Cara Lewis Group. “The lineup that sticks out the most is 2018. CLG was on every stage with headlining performances from Eminem (pouring beyond belief during Eminem’s set), Travis Scott (one of his first festival headline performances with a CLG shoutout) as well as sets from Russ, Pusha T, Khalid, and Vic Mensa. These shows were magical with capacity crowds and top-tier energy.”

That said, Lewis also knew the challenges the location presented. “Back when the festival was on Randall’s Island, fans took ferries and trekked three-plus miles from the closest train stop to get onto the festival grounds,” she says. “Regardless of how inconvenient it was, it didn’t matter — it was the place to be! It was a well-curated event and considered ‘New York’s Lollapalooza or Coachella.’”

While putting Gov Ball at the same level as those tent pole festivals, especially while it was at Randall’s Island, may seem like a stretch, in its new digs and its prominence in the NYC market is putting Gov Ball in the same conversations.

“it’s big and it’s impressive, it’s a top-tier festival now in every way,” says Kirk Sommer WME’s Senior Partner and Global Co-Head of Music. “It may not be as easy to navigate as a Zilker Park or a Grant Park or a Golden Gate Park and it comes with its challenges, but I think it’s really matured into a top tier event. There’s evidence from the multiple headliners they have today, there’s a lot of gas in the tank with a lot of their top acts.”

“This year could be the biggest lineup that they’ve ever had. Tyler. The Creator had a sold out arena run, Benson Boone just blew out 30 shows in North America at the on sale, Olivia is clearly a stadium level act now, and Hozier is a stadium level act now—he’s got two Fenway Park sell outs and 50,000 tickets sold in Toronto’s Rogers Arena. There’s a lot of the other acts that getting attention. Role Model is great and having a moment, a lot people are big on Mk.Gee as are Royel Otis and Mount Joy in terms of alt rock propositions.”

Gov Ball’s past line-ups are impressive and have included major artists over the years, including: OutKast, Eminem, Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Guns N’ Roses, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, SZA, J. Balvin, Kanye West and a massive breakout performance by Chappell Roan last summer. Another key to the festival’s success is the relationships it has built over fifteen years both with the industry and agents like Sommer and Lewis and in partnership with New York City.

“We talk to every single agency under the sun,” Russell explains. “It starts with the mayor’s office and their CECM (Citywide Event Coordination & Management) office. Then there’s the New York City Parks Department. Then there’s NYPD. Then there’s OEM (Office of Emergency Management) and FDNY (Fire Department) And then you have all the sub-branches of these agencies. So with NYPD, you have the local precincts and NYPD operations. Then you have NYPD counterterrorism. You have the FBI. All of these agencies are in the mix. And we work with them every year to ensure a safe of an event possible. And we’ve all become close over time. When situations like wildfires or whatever happen, we all work together to make it happen. And those agencies, they see everything under the sun even more than I do.”

“I began working with Gov Ball sometime around 2014. I had been working in the Citywide Special Events Office at Parks as their Deputy Director and it was in this role that I first worked closely with the team at Randalls Island and Tom Russell,” explains Anthony Sama, currently the City’s Administrator for Flushing Meadows Corona Park. “Having been involved with many major events that take place within our beautiful Parks I can say that NYC public spaces have many complexities to navigate when it comes to major event management. Gov Ball has proven that they understand the landscape of NYC and are willing to work through difficult conditions and permitting requirements to ensure every stakeholder is heard and receives the information they need to feel comfortable and confident in their operations.”

And it’s not just government and top industry execs who recognize and respect Russell’s hustle. “Tom Russell’s fingerprints, blood, sweat and tears are all over Governors Ball success,” says Dave Smalley,  Founder & CEO of Spectrum Catering and Concessions, who has worked with Gov Ball since its inception. “From navigating not only changing venues, but extreme weather, Kanye West being informed of his wife’s robbery in Paris and walking off stage (which occurred at the Meadows Fest also produced by Russell’s Founders Entertainment), it takes a person of true grit and determination to not only see it through, but thrive. Most anyone else would have thrown in the towel, given in to the uphill battle, but Tom did not. He epitomizes ‘One doesn’t just sit and wait for the storm to pass, one learns to dance with the rain.”

Dancing with copious amounts of rain for the last fifteen years has become part of Russell’s modus operandi. When asked if pivoting is a constant for him, he boils it all down. “Look, when you do whatever you can to protect your baby, and we truly believe in Gov Ball, we’re just determined to find a way to come back and have each year be bigger and better than the last. I think any business has a set of challenges, especially in the outdoor event business. And for us, when you’re dealing with New York City and the competition and the unique nature of the market, it’s particularly challenging, but we’ve just found a way.”