Life Is Beautiful has always been a festival of ambition. Transforming 18 city blocks into a sprawling jungle gym of music, art and comedy is no easy feat. And yet, for a decade, it happened every year to the delight of more than one million attendees.
This year, the Downtown festival bucked that tradition, pausing to do something drastically different. LIB’s 2024 event is a two-day block party held in a significantly smaller footprint on South Main Street, in the outdoor equestrian arena next to the Plaza. And rather than a who’s-who of the festival circuit, the lineup of this Big Beautiful Block Party would be pared down to 14 acts, including Parisian electro-house duo Justice, dance punk outfit LCD Soundsystem, Berlin-based mega DJ Peggy Gou, funk wizard Thundercat, stylish disco revisionists Jungle and many other celebrated indie dance acts, including Jamie XX, Empress Of and James Blake.
The news made local and national headlines, with some wondering aloud if this spelled the end of the homegrown music and arts festival as we’ve come to know it. But organizers insist the Big Beautiful Block Party isn’t a replacement for the ambitious festival, but an extension of it.
Gus Wenner, CEO of Rolling Stone, who acquired LIB with Penske Media Corporation in December 2023, says the decision to take a year off from the festival simply came down to needing to secure a new location for it.
“In the time that it took to do that, and given the timeframe we were working with, it just made more sense to do something like this that we could execute really well,” Wenner says. “We felt there was a lane for it in the market. Ultimately, in a year where you can’t go full-on, putting on something that’s really fun for people, affordable and with no overlapping sets … just felt like a really good way to kind of keep the energy going.”
Social media is awash in Block Party opinions and conjecture. But what’s not being talked about enough is how solid the lineup actually is for a more intimate festival. It has all the potential to attract audiences LIB couldn’t before reach. We cherished the fest’s early years, when you could catch SZA before the release of her breakout album Ctrl, or a pre-Brat Summer Charli XCX. But each year, those names grew bigger and more predictable.
It’s refreshing to see a riskier bill, one that caters to genre-bending catalogs and live indie acts that are ripe for discovery. Toro y Moi and Badbadnotgood are just the kind of unexpected names that used to regularly appear in LIB’s medium print. In fact, Wenner views it as a return to form for the brand.
“Looking at some of the sets that have been the most fun at other festivals, like Peggy Gou at Coachella, that was the set. LCD is unbelievable live. And I think making it a little bit more focused and leaning into Life Is Beautiful’s roots—there is a heavy root in dance, electronic and indie—it just felt really natural,” he says. “This was all through the lens of doing something that is genuinely a good time, and this lineup fit that bill.”
In regards to those roots, Wenner says vestiges of what has made LIB great—art, installations and experiential elements—will also return to the Block Party, in spite of its scaled-down ambitions. (That said, this is happening as many of the striking murals from past LIB events are being painted over.) Depending on how well this dance party goes, it could become a complementary event to the annual festival.
“That’s something we’re thinking about,” Wenner says. “We love the Block Party concept, and it also kind of opens up lanes to focus on certain genres and go a little deeper.”
Considering the state of festivals, format changes like this feel welcome. In the last few months, multiple music festivals, including California’s Desert Daze and Lucidity, have been scrapped due to production costs. Even Vegas’ own inaugural Giddy Up country festival, set to take place in October, quietly pulled the plug.
“A lot of festivals have struggled and come and gone. I think the market got somewhat oversaturated, especially after the pandemic,” Wenner says. “There are just so many and people have so many options, but that also opens the door to opportunity. I think if you have a strong brand,a strong concept and a strong location in a great city, there’s a lot to be done there.”
Life Is Beautiful Presents: A Big Beautiful Block Party September 27-28, 5 p.m., $149+, 324 S. Main St., lifeisbeautiful.com.
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