A new Salt Lake City music festival, which was meant to be an ode to the indie pop genre, has been canceled.
Love Letters Festival was originally scheduled to take place at Library Square on Sept. 27-29, but in an Instagram post shared Tuesday, organizers told ticket buyers the festival has been canceled.
Many fans voiced frustration about the cancelation and asked for clarity in the comments of the Instagram announcement, while others on Reddit questioned why it happened.
S&S Presents, the group that runs multiple independent music venues in Utah — such as Kilby Court, which just celebrated 25 years in operation — put the concept of Love Letters Festival together after the success of the fifth annual Kilby Court Block Party, which attracted fans from all over the world.
Nic Smith, managing director of S&S, said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune that worldwide, “many music festivals are permanently closing due to a variety of reasons.”
For Love Letters, that reason was encountering “a few issues that we just weren’t able to resolve and had to make the difficult decision to cancel,” Smith said, without elaborating.
Fans also expressed anger about not being refunded the full service fee for their tickets. Originally, Smith said ticket holders would be receiving full refunds for the tickets through 24Tix.com, which sold them. But, “per the purchasers agreement, a small portion of the service fee is used in payment processing costs in the event of event cancellation.”
The Tribune previously reported that tickets for this event would cost around $215 for a three-day pass, and around $362 for a three-day VIP pass. One user on Reddit said their service fee per ticket cost $19.95.
However, late Tuesday night, Smith told The Tribune that ticket holders would be receiving a full refund, for both the ticket cost and the service fee. Smith said 24Tix will process refunds automatically this week.
The lineup for the festival included 59 different artists, such as Japanese-American lo-fi artist and rapper Joji, Michigan singer-songwriter Quinn XCII and rapper Ashnikko. Other bigger acts included: pop musician Lauv; English actress and singer-songwriter Suki Waterhouse; singer-songwriter Chelsea Cutler; alt-pop singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira; TikTok sensation Clinton Kane and Australian Dean Lewis.
There were also many local acts on the bill, like jazz-reminiscent artist Angie Petty, Salt Lake City sibling duo Silver Cup, Mexican-American artist Detzany and electronic pop artist Saysha. For some artists, this was their first festival performance opportunity.
“I cannot say yet if Love Letters will be happening in 2025, but we are big fans all of the artists on this lineup and are hoping to bring them to SLC in some capacity in the near future,” Smith said.