Dierks Bentley Forced to Cancel 2021 Seven Peaks Music Festival
The decision came as a shock.
Only a few weeks after announcing its 2021 lineup, the Seven Peaks Music Festival founded by Dierks Bentley has been forced to cancel the event.
Making the sad announcement on social media Friday (July 9), Bentley expressed deep regret that the Colorado show will not return as planned, once again due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“I am so sorry to announce that we are going to have to cancel 7P for this year,” Bentley wrote. “I really could not be more bummed about it. We tried everything to make it happen, but Chaffee County has decided against lifting capacity restrictions. It cannot be overstated how much time, thought, effort and energy has gone into gearing up for the festival this year. I want to thank my team for their work, the artists for their trust, and above all our fans, who look forward to this event all year long. Especially this year.”
The news came as a shock to Bentley and fans alike, as festivals and large events around the nation return. But despite the state of Colorado itself lifting all COVID-19 restrictions last week, Chaffee County — which is home to the festival’s site in Buena Vista — will not allow more than 5,000 people at an event.
The multi-day music and camping event would have taken place over Labor Day weekend (September 3-5), with Bentley and Keith Urban headlining a year-three lineup that included Kip Moore, Old Crow Medicine Show, Travis Denning, Clay Walker and more. But despite Bentley’s optimism that the show would go on, a number of factors reportedly played into the cancellation.
According to concert promoter Live Nation, some 6,000 tickets had been sold without the approval of local officials, and in late June, the Country Jam festival in Grand Junction, Colorado, resulted in what’s been described as a COVID-19 outbreak. At least 17 cases of the disease were reported after the event, which hosted over 20,000 fans each day for three days. Seven Peaks Music Festival would have hosted a similar number of attendees, and despite one of the highest vaccination rates in the nation, Colorado is also fighting one of the highest concentrations of the more-transmissible delta variant of COVID-19.
In a separate statement, Dierks Bentley said all tickets purchased for 2021 will be automatically refunded, and his team is already working to organize another event in 2022 — this time in a new location.
