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Emmylou Harris performs at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park on Oct. 6, 2019.
Emmylou Harris performs at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park on Oct. 6, 2019.
Photo: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGate.com
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Emmylou Harris performs at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park on Oct. 6, 2019.
Emmylou Harris performs at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park on Oct. 6, 2019.
Photo: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGate.com
Organizers of San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, which was due to celebrate its 20th annual event in October, have canceled the live event this year due to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, organizers are planning an online iteration of the festival, called Let the Music Play On.
On Saturday afternoon, the festival’s artist relations manager, Bonnie Simmons, took part in a livestream with the rock band Los Lobos, announcing that while organizers could have tweeted out the news about the fall festival, they decided a livestreamed concert was more fun. Simmons went on to explain that the festival’s in-person component needed to be canceled in accordance with current public health guidelines, but that “doing nothing just isn’t our style.”
Instead, the online Let the Music Play On show will feature livestreamed performances by to-be-announced acts and footage of fan-submitted pictures, videos and stories from previous fests. Simmons also promised “a few surprises we’re cooking up right now.” Among those surprises was the Hardly Strictly Music Relief Fund, a $1.5 million initiative from the Hellman Foundation “to support our local music community during the COVID-19 pandemic,” and specifically, roots musicians living in six Bay Area counties.
“With this effort, we seek to recognize, appreciate, and care for the people who lend their creativity, heart, and hard work to the American roots music ecosystem in the Bay Area,” a statement on the festival’s website reads.
The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is a popular free bluegrass, folk, rock and pop music festival in San Francisco that has been known to draw upwards of 750,000 people during the three-day event. The family-friendly festival, which sprawls across Golden Gate Park, has featured acts like Emmylou Harris, Iron & Wine, Robert Plant, Kurt Vile, Cheap Trick and Brandi Carlile in recent years. The lineup for the 2020 event hadn’t yet been released by Saturday’s announcement.
Alyssa Pereira is a culture editor at SFGate. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira