Photo Credit: Ocean City, Maryland, by Kat Keeling
After initially rescheduling some Friday performances to accommodate stormy weather, Oceans Calling has canceled the first day of the three-day festival altogether.
Oceans Calling in Ocean City, Maryland, had already modified its schedule ahead of the inclement weather rolling in this weekend. Unfortunately, that turned into a complete cancelation of Friday’s events, the first day of the three-day festival. The box office and merch pop-up on the inlet beach also closed down on Thursday.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of our production, site, safety teams, and the city staff/officials the impacts of this week’s continued weather, including beach erosion that affected the festival site, have made it impossible to safely complete the build in time for Friday,” event organizers announced. “As a result, Friday will not move forward as planned. The safety of our fans, artists, crew, and community must come first.”
Friday’s one-day tickets and 33% of three-day tickets purchased directly through vendor Front Gate Tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 30 days.
As of Thursday night, the festival is still scheduled to go ahead on Saturday and Sunday as planned. Friday’s performances would have included Dave Matthews Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, Ludacris, O.A.R., Yellowcard, Shaggy, Liz Phair, Gavin DeGraw, and KT Tunstall.
Before Friday was canceled, Oceans Calling organizers had intended to push things back, with the gates set to open at 1 PM, an hour later than initially planned, alongside a midnight curfew. All acts had been pushed back an hour as a result.
“We are working very hard to get the show up for the remainder of the weekend, and hoping the conditions improve,” their statement continued.
Oceans Calling is just the latest music festival to be impacted by heavy storms and beach erosion. Santa Monica’s inaugural Ocean Way Festival, which was set to feature acts like The Killers and Olivia Dean, was canceled due to severe beach erosion and damage caused by Hurricane Marie.
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival recently announced the decision to cancel the 2027 edition entirely to allow the 700-acre venue time to recover. Organizers also plan to make major drainage and infrastructure repairs after several years of severe weather interruptions.
Stagecoach Music Festival also had to postpone performances and temporarily evacuate attendees from the grounds due to sudden changes in weather and dangerously high winds.