Late Thursday night, the Village Voice announced a new summer shindig called the 4Knots Music Festival, taking place at New York’s South Street Seaport on July 16. Deep within that announcement is the news that the popular Siren Festival, which the Voice had sponsored in Coney Island for 10 years, has been canceled.
“We’re extremely excited about the launch of the 4Knots Music Festival this summer,” Village Voice publisher Josh Fromson said in a press release. “Music fans from all five boroughs and all over the world have circled the date of our summer music event on their calendars each year. We feel this new festival will not just live up to the glory of our past events, but sets the stage for continued success in the future.”
While the Coney Island beachfront area has been undergoing renovations for several years — resulting in the closure of many long-running businesses in recent months — a rep for the new festival told Billboard.biz that the cancellation of Siren is not related to that development. “The Voice just wanted to make a change — it’s really that simple,” he said.
Fromson told Gothamist Friday morning: “For ten successful years, Siren was an amazing event that was a part of our history at Coney Island. Over the years, the community of Coney has been wonderful hosts to us and we are grateful for all their support. This year we decided to take a new spin on our event by expanding into a new part of New York City to touch even more of our Voice readers with a great event for them. The Seaport is the perfect location to continue to showcase future music chart-toppers as Siren did, on one summer afternoon for free, to music fans of every age.”
The new festival, named for the speed at which the East River runs, will be free, open to all ages, and held rain or shine, according to the release; Bud Light is the title sponsor for the festival. The lineup, featuring “renowned and emerging artists from today’s music scene performing live all day in front of what is sure to be an extremely large and enthusiastic audience,” will be announced in the coming weeks.