From Riverfest Arkansas this morning comes news that the riverfront festival is “taking 2019 off to restructure, reorganize and re-invent.” The full release:
RIVERFEST ANNOUNCES BREAK FROM EVENT FOR THE 2019 YEAR
Event taking a reprieve in 2019
LITTLE ROCK, AR – RiverFest, Inc. announced today that RiverFest, an Arkansas tradition, won’t return in 2019 to Little Rock’s Julius Breckling Riverfront Park located on the banks of the Arkansas River.
“After much discussion amongst the voluntary staff of RiverFest, Inc, the event will be taking 2019 off to restructure, reorganize and re-invent. The next Arkansas RiverFest will tentatively take place in May of 2020.
RiverFest would like to thank the City of Little Rock, The Little Rock Visitors & Convention Bureau and all the other downtown businesses who hosted us during the 2018 RiverFest.
What we envision as a celebration of Arkansas’ art, music and talent is what we want to share with the community each year. We are so grateful for all the fans who attended in 2018, and we look
forward to making 2020 an even better experience.In 2020 we plan to return to the roots of the festival, with an event entirely focused on the heartbeat of Arkansas: our talented communities and the things we love.”
The festival’s future has been uncertain for a while now. After announcing in July of 2017 that Riverfest would call it quits, a Memphis-based event group called Universal Fairs took over the event for the 2018 festival, held last May over the Memorial Day weekend.