Music

The festival is taking a “gap year” before returning on a new weekend in 2027.

By Kevin Slane

June 20, 2025 | 11:38 AM

2 minutes to read

Boston Calling will not be holding its annual music festival in 2026, taking a “gap year” before returning on a new weekend in 2027.

Festival organizers made the announcement Friday morning on social media, writing that the annual festival will be taking a “short break” before returning from June 4-6, 2027.

“Thank you for making this year’s Boston Calling such a wonderful experience,” the festival posted on Instagram. “Your energy, passion and support mean the world to us. As we look ahead, Boston Calling will take a short break in 2026 as we gear up for an exciting return on a new weekend: June 4-6, 2027.”

Boston Calling first debuted on City Hall Plaza back in 2013. Its most recent edition, held over Memorial Day weekend, featured headliners Luke Combs, Fall Out Boy, and Dave Matthews Band.

Boston Calling 2025 was an experiment of sorts for festival organizers C3 Presents: Following complaints of overcrowding in 2024, the festival made wholesale changes to the layout for the first time in years, removing one of the stages and moving the VIP area that caused a chokepoint during Sunday’s set in 2024.

The end result was a vastly improved flow throughout the grounds at Boston Calling 2025. But it was also the first time in recent memory that none of the ticketing tiers were sold out prior to the start of the festival on May 23, which may indicate that the blissfully uncrowded atmosphere was at least partly due to lower-than-hoped ticket sales.

Not counting pandemic-induced cancellations, the next Boston Calling will also mark the first time the festival has not been held on Memorial Day weekend since moving to the Harvard Athletic Complex in 2017.

For years, Memorial Day has seemed like the perfect time for a festival in Boston; most college students are wrapping up their semester but haven’t moved back home yet, while young professionals have the luxury of a long weekend to rest up and recover after three days of music.

Moving the festival off Memorial Day could mean a number of things. It could signal that organizers felt that they were competing with people going away for Memorial Day weekend, and would prefer to test another warm-weather weekend when at least some college kids are still around the city.

Festival organizers did not return a request for comment regarding the newly announced decisions.

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