Life Is Beautiful Announces Line-Up With Arcade Fire, Florence + The Machine, The Weeknd

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images) – Life is Beautiful 2016

Arcade Fire, The Weeknd and Florence + The Machine have been announced as headliners of the sixth annual Life Is Beautiful festival in downtown Las Vegas Sept. 21-23.

Even in the increasingly crowded festival market, this one’s a monster loaded from top to bottom with additional acts including N.E.R.D., Travis Scott, Odesza, Death Cab For Cutie, DJ Snake, Miguel, Bastille, Galantis, Chvrches, Jungle, Tyler The Creator, Santigold, Justice, First Aid Kit, RL Grime, T-Pain, Daniel Caesar, Alison Wonderland and many more.

Craig Asher Nyman, Head Of Music + Live Performances for Life Is Beautiful, tells Pollstar they were looking to mix up many of 2018’s most popular festival acts who are in touring mode, like The Weeknd and Florence + The Machine, with some rare appearances.

“If you look at the top, Arcade Fire, there’s not many West Coast shows right now. Even Snake, he’s going to bring his real production with him. Death Cab is not on anything, they have a brand-new album about to come out,” Nyman says. “Bastille is another band that is about to come out with a brand-new album and you’re not seeing on other lineups. Chvrches just dropped their album, they’re on a few festivals. Santigold, who is expected to have a new album later this year, has yet to announce any other tour dates. Then you look at the career that Daniel Caesar is on, a rocket ship to stardom. Obviously, I mentioned GoldLink and Jungle.”

Nyman, a true music lover, can go up and down the entire lineup and point out something that makes each artist special.

“Overall, I think the lineup this year is just a whole lot of fun,” he says. “It’s hard to go up and down the lineup and find a band you’re not going to get excited to go out and see. We have a little bit of everything,” Nyman said.

Last year’s sold-out festival, with more than 50,00 fans a day, featured Muse, Chance The Rapper, Gorillaz, Blink-182, Lorde, Kaskade and more, further established LIB as a top-tier destination event and was good enough for the fifth highest-grossing festival in 2017, according to Pollstar’s year-end Boxoffice data. Last year’s event grossed $16,871,240 which was up nearly $6 million from 2016 when the capacity was 40,000 and saw $9,972,111 in gross revenues.

While the lineup was just announced today, Nyman excitedly points out last week’s early bird presale was a smashing success which may even surpass last year’s haul. “We just went through our most successful early bird ticket onsale ever. We blew through a record number,” he points out.

Nyman credits his promotion partners, the Bay Area’s Another Planet Entertainment which promotes Outside Lands, Treasure Island, Colossal Clusterfest (with Superfly), and operates or books The Greek Theater (Berkeley), the Fox Theater Oakland and The Bill Graham Civic in San Francisco, with Life is Beautiful’s success. “We have a great partner in Another Planet and I think that collectively we work really well and complement each other to bring the best lineup to our fans. We just try to stay true to who we are,” he says.

“You come down to Downtown Las Vegas, you’re staying at a hotel that’s a five-minute walk from the footprint, you’re running around 18 city blocks and there’s always something to consume, whether it’s art or comedy, which we’re beefing up the comedy this year.

“The Ideas speakers last year had Bill Nye. When people come onsite, it’s a little bit overwhelming because there are so many options. It’s a great feeling to know we’re going into this announcement tomorrow with all this to unleash on the world. It started out as two days, a 20,000-30,000 person festival and last year we sold out 50,000. For us, it’s carrying that momentum forward.”

Tickets go on sale Thursday, April 2,6 at 10 a.m. PT. Regular three-day GA tickets are $295 + fees and three-day VIP tickets start at $655 + fees.