The Reason the 2025 Field & Stream Festival was Cancelled
The Field & Stream Music Festival has been cancelled for the second year in a row. Meant to help promote the return of the iconic American Field & Stream magazine and lifestyle brand, the festival was set to be held in Winnsboro, South Carolina October 3-5. Though promoters are giving the common explanation of “unforeseen circumstances” for the cancellation, Saving Country Music has learned it was due to low ticket sales.
Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Riley Green, Bailey Zimmerman, and ZZ Top were all slated as headliners in 2025. The event has been snake bit from the beginning. In 2024, the festival had a similar lineup along with Lainey Wilson set to perform. But due to remnants of Hurricane Helene, the Oct. 4-6 festival was cancelled as well.
The Field & Stream name has deep country music tie-ins. The Field & Stream magazine was in print between 1895 until 2015. It became an online publication in 2020. Then in January of 2024, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen purchased the magazine and brand, and announced its return as a print publication, along with the festival. The festival was considered a significant component to revitalizing the brand.
Saving Country Music was tipped off the festival would be cancelled on Wednesday, August 20th, and that it would be announced to the public on Friday, August 22nd. There’s no explanation of why the announcement was delayed.
In a statement published on Wednesday, August 27th, the festival states, “Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, Field & Stream Music Fest has been canceled. The refund process will commence immediately and will cover all Field & Stream purchases tied to your order, including tickets, upgrades, camping, parking, add-ons, taxes, and fees.”
The Field & Stream Festival is owned by the brand itself with Eric Church and Morgan Wallen as key investors, along with the event production company Southern Entertainment.
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August 27, 2025 @ 7:52 pm
Ridiculous! People waited a year!
August 28, 2025 @ 3:53 am
…good location, attractive enough lineup for all generations – perhaps a little late in the touring season. signs of saturation or too ambitious ticket prices? on paper this event should fly. very peculiar that it wouldn’t.
August 28, 2025 @ 4:27 am
I don’t work in the festival space, but I am a talent buyer, working primarily with country and roots music. Right now there just haven’t been the sales to justify the increased costs to touring. People are not spending their dwindling disposable income on rapidly increasing ticket prices.
August 28, 2025 @ 6:31 am
This is an interesting comment. It’s hits on two points. I’m curious, why is there an increase in touring costs? Is it just inflation and the nature of the beast? Or does it have to do with anything industry specific?
Ticket prices have obviously skyrocketed. I attributed this to Ticketmaster and monopolies controlling everything. Are you saying the increase in touring costs have increased prices beyond what people are now willing to pay. That somehow seems even worse than the monopolies issue.
Just curious as I am definitely and outsider here.
August 28, 2025 @ 9:18 am
I work as a talent buyer and in the festival space. Airline tickets are up, physical stage and lighting rentals are up, labor for stage and sound engineers is up and insurance is waaaay up. Couple all this together and tickets prices increase to a point where struggling fans are buying groceries and gas instead of music tickets. My ear to the ground feels like this pain is felt the most in established medium sized events and especially in new small events that dont have a built in crowd established yet. That’s my two cents.
August 28, 2025 @ 7:41 pm
I may be wrong but as long as you can supply the demand of the tickets, with enough area space to do so, ticket price should be able to come way down. Almost like how the Beaver Bar took over bike week here in SC, FL, and SD with 2 dollar beers.
August 28, 2025 @ 9:37 am
I think you’re right. I’ve noticed dips in attendance year over year for Braun Bros, Jackelope, and Wheatstock in the Northwest…..which could also be feeling the pinch from the big mega-festivals like Fairwell.. Not the worst attendance but a noticeable drop just in ticket availability up to the weekend of the shows.
There is some greed with the food and beverage prices as well. Hayden Homes Amphitheatre charges $22 for single Tito’s for example. You can end up spending more on concessions than ticket prices.
But if Stillwater can accommodate 200,000 people with no hotels then I’m sure Field & Stream could have made it work.
August 28, 2025 @ 7:33 am
I’ve heard from numerous people from the region saying this was in a bad location with no hotel infrastructure, and not convenient to any major markets, even if it was between a couple of them.
And though Miranda Lambert and Eric Church are certainly big names, I just don’t know if they pull the kind of water, and can draw the kind of capacity these days this festival was looking for. A lot of larger country fests are also trying to pad lineups with Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, and that’s just never felt sustainable. The Greenville Music Festival a few weeks later seems to have a better finger on the pulse of what’s “hot” right now, and my guess is this event just couldn’t find the same traction.
August 29, 2025 @ 5:12 am
Winnsboro is VERY close to Columbia, the stste capital
August 28, 2025 @ 4:15 am
It’s usually the lack of tickets sold that causes these abrupt cancellations.
August 28, 2025 @ 8:53 am
Alot of these artists are spoiled and entitled… this was a birthday gift for my son last year… and because they changed the lineup… tickets didn’t sell well so they cancel… gone are the days when music people went to work. As a avid concert goer since the 90s… this is happening all the time now… don’t support these ppl anymore. Stream on Spotify and music sharing apps until A.I. replaces them all..
August 28, 2025 @ 9:39 am
For the record, a festival cancellation like this is rarely the fault of the artists. In fact, they usually get screwed because their routing of tours is affected. Yes, this also happens for local shows, and too often these days. But I wouldn’t blame the fest’s talent lineup for this, aside from maybe not selling enough tickets.
August 28, 2025 @ 9:46 am
The day AI replaces live music is the day I stab my own eardrums and make myself deaf in protest. At close to 50, I’ve learned there is no better place to consume music than the pit of a small to mid-sized venue. Go to a Shelby Stone show and tell me I’m wrong. The artists I see, which is basically everyone mentioned on this site, work their asses off and even if they’ve made it, they worked 10+ years or road dogging to get there. Being cancelled on sucks though…..remember Eric Church cancelling to go to Duke-NC basketball?
August 29, 2025 @ 5:10 am
They cancelled last year due to a hurricane, not ticket sales.
August 28, 2025 @ 9:42 am
Anybody know what they were charging for tickets?
I was interested in checking out either Daniel Donato/Old Crow Medicine Show or the Infamous Stringdusters here in Charlottesville. GA tickets are going for $61 apiece. That’s probably a 50-75% increase over what one would’ve paid pre-Covid. This is what makes inflation so insidious; the delta between $0 and what an item/event costs makes the $0 alternative that much more appealing.
August 28, 2025 @ 12:38 pm
Back in the day, touring was a mainly a way to promote the record. Making money was secondary. So I could get into see club shows for 10 bucks and stadium concerts for 35. Now that people don’t buy records anymore, touring is the most reliable source of income for these artists. And now it’s reached a tipping point where it’s too expensive to support. We could be seeing the beginning of the end of music as a viable art form, at least in the economic sense.
August 28, 2025 @ 1:47 pm
Maybe that is a good thing. A reset of the status quo.
Music and movies/series both; a steady flow of “new” things, turning out to be exactly like the “old” things, only worse. A copy of a copy of a copy.
Real talent drowns in a sea of mediocre crap.
August 28, 2025 @ 1:09 pm
I think it’s a case of too many festivals/shows with increased ticket prices and to borrow a lyric from Marty Stuart: “too much month at the end of the money”.
I received an email today that the Pilgrimage in Franklin is offering 20% off tickets (their festival is in 4 weeks). Soundside Music Festival in CT canceled last month. It feels like there will be a market adjustment in 2026 and some of these festivals will fall by the wayside.
August 28, 2025 @ 3:38 pm
Im down at the Earl Scruggs Music Festival in Mill Spring NC right now. Its a nearly sold out event. Its a mostly bluegrass fest with a couple of Americana acts in the mix. Its kinda out in the boonies so to speak, but most people are staying on-site, either camping or cabins or the lodge. Numerous eateries on-site, very self contained. 3rd year of the festival and numbers are growing each year. And most importantly, Live Nation has nothing to do with it. A lot of factors for sure, but the lineup is first-rate, location beautiful.
August 28, 2025 @ 5:31 pm
Hope you have a great time there! I’ve wanted to see AKUS for many years…..
August 30, 2025 @ 7:44 am
Same situation at the Bill Monroe Festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana.
August 28, 2025 @ 6:26 pm
I subscribe to the magazine. Its great i hope they keep it going
August 28, 2025 @ 11:54 pm
It’s just not an interesting lineup to base an attempted brand revitalization around: especially in a region where these sort of marquee country music festivals are plentiful.
I’m still rooting for the magazine’s eventual comeback and I think the publication itself will be successful again, but Church, Wallen and the publication’s top management need to be more creative and forward-thinking in how they go about envisioning the brand’s expansion: especially when Bass Pro, Carhartt and others have already largely cornered much of the market on recreation and sportsman’s lifestyles.
August 29, 2025 @ 7:31 am
Yeah, I think part of the calculus was that the brand was so iconic, it would sell itself. There is a reason LiveNation continues to lease the name “Austin City Limits” for their Austin City Limits Festival. Names matter, especially if you’re going to brand something behind an existing name.
August 29, 2025 @ 2:32 am
We also need to remind ourselves they gave us the option last year to keep, upgrade or refund. I know a lot of people upgraded and rolled tickets over which may take into account for low ticket sales for 2025. A lot of these people purchased their tickets 2023/2024 before Helene hit.
August 31, 2025 @ 6:52 pm
I was very disappointed about the cancellation last year, but totally understandable. Planned last year and this year’s family vacation around the festivals. Did not go to other concerts because I knew I would see the artist at the festival. What is the “magic” number? Not trying to be obnoxious just really curious. Obviously I am disappointed about this year but if this is my biggest problem I will be okay.