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FreeFest 2014 Canceled

Virgin Mobile’s annual music festival at Merriweather won’t happen this year.

Robin Thicke headlined the 2013 FreeFest. Photograph by Benjamin Freed.

This has been a rocky year for local music festivals. First the summertime-staple Fort Reno concerts were canceled—though thankfully organizers managed to get them reinstated. Now comes word that the annual Virgin Mobile FreeFest, held in the fall at Merriweather Post Pavilion, has also been nixed. 

Says Seth Hurwitz, chair of I.M.P. (which owns Merriweather) and one of the producers of FreeFest: “The Freefest was this fantastic product of a crossroads of Branson and some very creative people at Virgin. The mixture got shaken up every year, and it always settled at the last possible moment for that year. That was part of the spontaneous magic that everyone could pick up on I think. Unfortunately, the pieces are not all there right now with Virgin. Whether they are again who knows. But the Freefest concept is fantastic and we are exploring options to continue it at Merriweather.”

So what does that mean? We’re not really sure. We’ve reached out to Virgin Mobile for (hopefully less-vague) comment, and will update when we hear back. In the meantime, we’ll be pouring one out for the event, which since 2009 has been giving Washingtonians the chance to see big-name acts (which last year included Vampire Weekend, MGMT, and Icona Pop) for a price even cash-strapped college students could afford—that is, free. 

Find Tanya Pai on Twitter at @tanyapai.