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Due to possible complications in scheduling, the mainstage of Bumbershoot 2014 will not take place in the KeyArena as it has for the past three years. Instead, the festival’s headliners will be taking the stage in the outdoor Memorial Stadium, as it has in years past. This decision was enacted by One Reel, the organisers of the event, and according to organiser Aubrey Bergauer, it’s what patrons had been asking for, as Memorial is commonly associated with the annual festival, and that the staging will be better as a result of the change in venue.
Perhaps the most exciting takeaway from this announcement is that there will be more headliners this year than there could be while the mainstage was hosted at KeyArena. According to Bergauer, “Rather than two headliners each day, with two opening acts, as we had last year, we’ll have three headliners every day. This is a bigger, better Bumbershoot.” Furthermore, there will be a sidestage at Memorial Stadium that will feature a handful of acts as well, meaning there will be more music going on throughout the day than just the nine opening acts.
The official lineup isn’t to be announced until May 8th. Some are speculating that, with the recent cancellation of the second weekend of the Sasquatch! Festival, some of the bands originally planned to perform there will instead jump ship and play Bumbershoot instead. The most obvious choice would be Soundgarden, whom Bumbershoot organisers tried to get to play last year.
Of course, it goes without saying that this is going to be what begins to stir the rumour mill, and everyone’s bound to start tossing out who they would like to see play the event from this day until the 8th of May, so I’ll throw my hat in the ring. Going back to the Sasquatch! cancellation, if we could get Soundgarden, Neutral Milk Hotel and Broken Bells as headliners, with sidestage support from Tegan and Sara, Spoon, Foxygen, Jon Hopkins, Oneohtrix Point Never and Metz, the price of admission would be worth it already.
If you’d like to share your predictions or wishlist for the festival, do leave them in the comments below.
