J. Cole’s Dreamville Festival is back on in Raleigh, and it’s 2 days. What we know.
The Dreamville Festival, canceled last year because of the pandemic, is returning to Raleigh with double the music to make up for it.
Next year’s festival will held over two days on April 2 and 3, North Carolina rapper J. Cole and event organizers announced Monday.
The festival will bring concert-goers back to Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park, after the park hosted nearly 40,000 attendees during the inaugural, one-day festival in April 2019.
Originally scheduled for August 2018, the first-ever Dreamville Festival was washed out by Hurricane Florence and had to be postponed until the following year.
With the coronavirus pandemic canceling plans for a follow-up festival in 2020, event organizers said they’ve been planning a special return for fans and the local community that turned out in 2019.
“We had to come back bigger and better than before. With the fest moving to two days, Dreamville Festival is about to become the festival our team has always dreamt about,” Adam Roy, festival president, said in a news release. “We want this to grow into one of the premier annual music experiences in the country.”
General admission and VIP tickets for the two-day festival will go on sale Friday, Oct. 1, at 10 a.m. at the Dreamville Festival website.
Special pre-sale tickets will also be available beginning Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 10 a.m. Fans who want to access the early-bird tickets can do so by signing up for the festival’s newsletter.
To gain entry into the festival, fans will need to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result that is obtained within 72 hours of the event.
A full lineup for the two-day festival, which organizers say will be curated by Cole himself, has not yet been announced.
The kick-off festival in 2019 featured a headlining performance by Cole along with performances by other hip-hop and R&B artists, many on his Dreamville label, including Rapsody, SZA, Nelly, Big Sean, 6LACK, Teyana Taylor, and others.
Cole was raised in Fayetteville and now lives in Raleigh. He has been nominated for several Grammy Awards and won his first in 2020 for Best Rap Song for 21 Savage’s “A Lot,” a song that he co-wrote and also was featured on.
A portion of the proceeds from next year’s festival will be donated to the Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy and the Dreamville Foundation, a non-profit organization started by Cole in 2011, organizers said.
The foundation has served his hometown of Fayetteville, providing local schools with supplies and organizing emergency aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.
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This story was originally published September 27, 2021 at 12:28 PM with the headline "J. Cole’s Dreamville Festival is back on in Raleigh, and it’s 2 days. What we know.."
