Migo Fest, A New York Mexican Music Festival, Canceled Due To Artists Having ‘Visa Issues’

Migo Fest, a one-day event in New York celebrating Mexican corridos and Latino culture, was canceled one day before artists were set to take the stage because some acts experienced “visa issues.”

Organizers took to social media to announce the cancellation of an event that would have been the first of its kind in New York City, posting a video as well as a statement stating that they received a phone call on Wednesday night “that made it impossible for the festival to move forward without all of our performers.”

“From that moment, we did everything we could — down to the very last inch of our being,” wrote Migo Fest organizers, who added that all ticket buyers would be refunded.. “But as Mexicans do, we never gave up trying. … Migo Fest was built to give our people a platform and canceling it feels like letting them down.”

The festival had experienced setbacks since it was announced in late August, from lineup changes to switching venues. The original bill had 15 artists slated to perform, and that number went down to 10 when organizers announced earlier this month that Migo Fest was moving from Jones Beach Theater to Coney Island Amphitheater. Among the acts to drop out were Netón Vega and Alemán, two major artists in the Mexican urban music scene, as well as Jasiel Nuñez, Delilah and Kane Rodriguez.

“Migo Fest wasn’t just one person’s dream — it was a dream of many,” organizers said. “We had artists ready to share the stage with their idols, photographers hoping for their first big break, local clothing vendors preparing their booths, and creators from New York’s Latino community pouring their hearts into this.”

Despite the heartbreaking cancellation, organizers vowed to return in the future: “This isn’t the end of Migo Fest — it’s just a pause. We’ll be back stronger, for our people, our artists, and our community.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, raids and an administration closely monitoring visa approvals have made it more difficult for international artists, especially those from Mexico, to tour in the United States. Some acts have had their visas revoked because the State Department didn’t approve of their content (some regional Mexican and corridos acts incorporate cartel life into their lyrics and production), and others simply weren’t able to get their visa processed in time.

Regional Mexican star Julión Álvarez was one of those cases. He said he was informed that his visa was “canceled” one day prior to performing at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and the artist was forced to postpone his sold-out May 24^th concert. The production was mostly set and nearly ready to go when Álvarez got the call. The show’s promoter, Henry Cárdenas of Cárdenas Marketing Network, told Billboard that he lost about $2 million as a result of the postponement.

Pollstar reported on the visa issue in April, from high costs to processing times, and spoke to rocker-turned-lawyer Matthew Covey, who helped form a nonprofit called Tamizdat that aims to facilitate artist mobility and international and cultural exchange.

Covey said the problems aren’t exclusive to the current administration and that whatever progress there was with President Joseph Biden has since stalled. He added that processing times are longer than ever because they are now sent to one office in Texas, which are then distributed to offices in California, which is usually slower, or Vermont.

The new procedure of having a centralized office dispersing requests to whichever location is capable sounds good on paper, but with the government workforce depleted during COVID and even more so with the current administration’s Department of Government Efficiency eliminating hundreds of thousands of positions, processing time can take as long as nine months, affecting how promoters and agents route a tour, unless an artist’s team pays thousands of dollars to expedite the request.

“No one that most of us work with is in a position to be filing a year in advance,” Covey said. “… The embassies haven’t really recovered from COVID and the de-staffing that happened under Trump — it’s a double whammy because Trump really deprioritized the foreign service. Almost all embassies around the world have been in a state of personnel crisis.”