Rocking The Boat: Sixthman Celebrates 25 Years Of Living Loud With Community-Inspired Festivals At Sea

When Creed was gearing up to reunite after an 11-year-hiatus, guitarist and founding member Mark Tremonti insisted that the best way to return to the stage was by setting sail on its very own concert cruise.

“He thought that this should be the first thing that we do and it would be a good conversation starter,” UTA agent and partner Ken Fermaglich told Pollstar. “You know, most bands would go back and either play a festival for the first thing back or a tour. … He felt strongly that a cruise would be a good place to start [and] get in touch with this community.”

Fermaglich pitched the concept to experiential cruise company Sixthman, noting that “we didn’t know anything about what it would turn into or what it would be like. This goes to the entrepreneurial spirit of [Sixthman] … their willingness to take chances and create brand new properties.”

The “Summer of ’99 Cruise” – which featured support from 3 Doors Down, Buckcherry, Tonic, Vertical Horizon, Fuel and more – sold out so quickly that a second voyage, “Summer Of ’99 And Beyond Cruise,” was soon added and also sold out.

“Only about [2,500] people could fit on that ship and we sold the whole [thing] out very quickly, but that’s a small amount of people when you think of a massive fan base,” Fermaglich says. “You’re super-serving that small fan base with that experience. So it really built a lot more excitement for when we were ready to announce the tour.”
Following the “Summer of ’99 Cruise” and “Summer Of ’99 And Beyond Cruise,” held in April and May 2024, Creed hit the road in July 2024 for a 40-city trek, produced by Live Nation, that featured a number of acts from its Sixthman cruises. Since then, Creed has continued touring and earlier this year announced dates for its fifth voyage set for 2027.

Sixthman has also hit a milestone, with the company known for “creating community-inspired vacation experiences at sea,” celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In the last quarter century, Sixthman has hosted 242 events, welcoming 3,672 artists and 544,283 guests.

The origin story for the festival-at-sea pioneer dates back to 2001 when alternative rock band Sister Hazel took 400 fans on a cruise to thank its street team for their support, which led to the band and manager Andy Levine launching The Rock Boat cruise the next year. (See guest post) Levine previously ran Sixthman Management and served as CEO of Sixthman through 2016.

The Rock Boat continued its voyages and by 2007, Sixthman expanded to launch cruises headlined by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Barenaked Ladies. In 2012, Sixthman was acquired by Norwegian Cruise Line and five years later expanded to two ships.

Sixthman has worked with major artists across genres including KISS, John Prine, Pitbull, Kesha, Zac Brown Band and Melissa Etheridge, as well as partnering with acclaimed festival brands like Warped Tour (Warped Rewind at Sea), EDC (EDSea) and Rock The Bells. Sixthman has also expanded its offerings outside of music, including headline comedy talent (Nate Bargatze, Bert Kreischer and Heather McMahon); sports (The Savannah Bananas’ Bananaland At Sea and Chris Jericho’s Rock N’ Wrestling Rager At Sea) and beyond.

Throughout the years, Sixthman has built a reputation for upholding hospitality as its North Star, with how the company treats its guests, artists and staff alike.

“When I started working at Sixthman, what really drew me to it, what made me kind of go, ‘Oh, this is so different and so special’ and what’s kept me here in a lot of ways is there’s so much intention around what that fan experience looks like, what the artist experience looks like,” says Senior Director of Business Development Darby Moeller, who has been with the company for nearly 15 years.

Moeller shares that every time she’s sailing on a Sixthman cruise, regardless of the headliner, for her, it’s all about the sail away moment – “which is what we call the moment the ship leaves the port and your key talent, your hosts are all on stage and they’re welcoming everyone to the event and everyone has a toast. I get sentimental and goosebumps … because there’s something really special about watching people’s dreams come true in real time. Watching them see their heroes in front of them in real time – that never gets old to me.”

As for moments that have leveled up the company, Moeller points to Paramore’s inaugural cruise, Parahoy!, another project that was pitched by UTA’s Fermaglich and in some ways broke the mold of what a concert cruise could be – and who it would appeal to.

The 2014 cruise’s activities included “Paraoke,” featuring fans singing Paramore songs, which were judged “American Idol”-style by the band
“The pool deck was full as though we were at a Paramore show,” Moeller says.

“Everyone wanted to watch this happen. And when someone got nervous and kind of forgot the words for a minute, the whole crowd sang for them. … And it was really one of those moments where we were like, we need to be finding more of those moments, more ways to let the fans interact with their heroes, but also create a moment for the community to cheer each other on.”

Those memories stuck with fans, as Fermaglich says the word of mouth coming off of the cruise “was absolutely nuts.” Fans were spotted wearing sailor hats at shows and chatting online, as the momentum helped the second edition of Parahoy! sell out before support acts were announced.

For Sixthman, Parahoy! was proof that the younger artists can also succeed in the cruise space as the edition was one of the company’s first forays into selling to a younger audience.

Moeller notes that word of mouth started happening more on the industry side just as much as the fandom side, as Sixthman saw more agents and managers calling the company to pitch ideas.

Cuellar, who joined Sixthman in October 2021 as Vice President of Partnerships and was named CEO in 2024, says that since he’s come on board – pun intended – the demand for live entertainment coming out of the pandemic has allowed the company to continue taking chances by expanding its offerings, including TV and film-themed outings like Jay and Silent Bob’s Cruise Askew and Hallmark Channel Christmas Cruise, as well as the culinary-themed Chefs Making Waves cruise.

Some of the lofty goals the team has recently accomplished include launching Sixthman’s first-ever cruise to Alaska with Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea Alaska in 2025 and utilizing a larger ship with the 5,000-capacity Norwegian Joy, starting with EDSea, produced in partnership with Insomniac.

“For anyone who’s experienced an EDC around the world, the first thing you notice is scale. The incredible stages, artist lineups that simply keep going, production that can’t be touched, and fire. More flames and fireworks than the 4th of July! But EDC has never just been about big. Pasquale Rotella founded it 30 years ago and maintains an obsessive attention to every detail. From the artwork and the lineup grid, down to the stickers in the ticket box. So the bigger ship was never about cramming more people in. It was about having a canvas large enough to properly present EDC in the most boutique environment we’ve ever worked in without sacrificing what makes EDC…EDC,” says Harvey Cohen, Senior Vice-President, Insomniac & President, Vibee Destination Experiences.

Other events that have graduated to the larger Joy include Emo’s Not Dead, Creed’s “Summer of ’99 And Beyond” and Rock The Bells.

Cuellar explains that Sixthman looks at everything they do on the ship as a partnership: “It’s a completely different ask to work with an artist to produce an immersive event on a ship than it is to, say, do one night at Madison Square Garden or something to that effect,” he says “It’s finding the passion, but then finding those partners and the talent that understand it isn’t just a show, it is a multi-day experience and we need to program this thing with more than just talent on stage. … This is also your chance as an artist to showcase the things that inspire you, the things that get you excited.”

When determining which artists will be a good fit to headline a Sixthman cruise, Moeller says, “We really look at a lot of things that are a little outside of just ticket sales and merch sales and email lists and social media followings. Are there Reddit communities? Are the fans finding places in real life to congregate together?”

Moeller pointed out in her 2026 Women Of Live profile that Sixthman executed 25 events in 2025 and scaled to 28 in 2026, but what meant more to her than the number was the demand behind it.

She says, “68% of our sailings were full ships, first-year programs outpaced expectations, and returning events saw an average 59% guest return rate. That’s not just excitement around something new, that’s loyalty. It’s the same kind of deep connection we’ve seen for years with artists like 311 and Coheed and Cambria. When fans feel ownership of something, they come back.”

Looking ahead, Sixthman plans to further expand its comedy programming and return to Alaska. Plus, the company is working to head back to Europe in the next couple of years.

“[We’re] really just trying to ensure that we have really healthy communities going forward. And then finding how we can super serve the next ones,” Moeller says. “My team is already working on 2028 – who is next, who’s ready, who has something special up their sleeve and they want to give their fans a really extra special treat or start to build a foundational program that they can carry on for the next 10 years.”