Sacramento’s largest country music festival, GoldenSky, is going dark in 2025

Sacramento’s top country music extravaganza, GoldenSky Festival, added an extra day of shows in 2024. In 2025, it’ll be put on ice.

The three-day festival in Discovery Park won’t be held this year, Visit Sacramento announced on social media Thursday. The city’s tourism agency promised a return to greater heights in 2026.

“After three incredible years of country music under the Sacramento sky, we’ve made the decision to press pause on GoldenSky in 2025 as we set our sights on an even bigger and better return in 2026,” Visit Sacramento’s social media post read. “This wasn’t an easy decision, but we’re committed to delivering the best possible festival experience for our GoldenSky community. While we’ll miss gathering with you this year, this isn’t goodbye — it’s just a short break before we come back in 2026 with a festival two years in the making!”

GoldenSky drew approximately 75,000 people to Discovery Park over three days in October, infusing about $14 million into Sacramento’s economy, Visit Sacramento president and CEO Mike Testa said.

Marquee acts Luke Bryan, Keith Urban and Thomas Rhett headlined, and breakout star Shaboozey performed a Sunday set that was arguably the most raucous of the weekend.

At the weekend’s conclusion, Testa talked about eventually adding a third consecutive Discovery Park music festival following Aftershock Festival and GoldenSky, both put on by Danny Wimmer Presents. Yet he also acknowledged a saturated live music market after the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many of California’s smaller festivals to shut down and even hampered behemoths such as Coachella.

On Friday, Testa noted that three other country music festivals — Faster Horses Festival and Tailgate ‘N Tallboys in Michigan and Country Fan Fest in Utah — would be canceled in 2025 as well.

Aftershock, a similar concert showcase rock music, isn’t at risk of being nixed, he said.

“At the core, there are a lot of country music festivals across the country and there are a finite amount of country music artists to play them,” Testa said. “When you’re booking one genre of music, you’re competing with all the other festivals that are doing that one genre as well.”

Getting premium acts at affordable rates has become harder as a result, said Chamie McCurry, Danny Wimmer Presents’ general manager. Three-day GoldenSky general admission passes cost just $150 before fees when they went on sale in December 2023, and VIP tickets were a mere $300.

“Since Day 1, we’ve been committed to delivering the best possible lineup at the most affordable price to create an exceptional festival experience. When that doesn’t feel attainable, we will always put our fans and their experience first,” McCurry wrote in an email.

“This wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s one we made with both our fans and the local community in mind,” she said. “Our goal is to build a festival that stands the test of time, and sometimes that requires taking a step back to realign and refocus before moving forward.”

With country acts at a premium, GoldenSky will likely dip into other genres in 2026, Testa said. One saving grace: Tickets to the 2025 festival hadn’t yet been posted for sale.

This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 8:49 AM.