Lake Street Dive, which plays Gasparilla Music Festival at Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park in Tampa, Florida on Feb. 16-18, 2024. Credit: Photo by Shervin Lainez

As organizers told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay in March, Tampa’s Gasparilla Music Festival (GMF) moves to a new venue this spring. And today, they just unveiled the first wave of bands coming to Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park in February.

Indie-pop favorite Young The Giant, soulful Americana roots act Lake Street Dive, and livetronic hip-hop and jazz duo Big Gigantic top the initial Gasparilla Music Festival lineup unveiled this morning. Production duo Louis the Child, playing its freestyle DJ “playground set,” rounds out the early slate of headliners.

A daily schedule and full lineup is coming soon according to a press release, but per tradition, the joyful sound of Dr. Kevin Parrott’s Mt. Zion Gospel Choir will kick off one of the days.

More indie-pop (Coin), pop-reggae songwriter Trevor Hall, old-school alt-hip-hop trio Digable Planets, bluegrass outfit Yonder Mountain String Band, New Orleans’ rowdy rebirth Brass Band, and Aidan Bissett—an alum of Tampa’s Jesuit High School— are among other notables among the nearly two dozen bands announced today (see the whole of today’s announcement below).

Early bird tickets for Gasparilla Music Festival happening Friday-Sunday, Feb. 16-18 at Tampa’s Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park start at $60 for two-day general admission.

Gasparilla Music Festival 2024 initial lineup

Aidan Bissett
Ashley Smith and the Random Occurrence
Beach Weather
Big Gigantic
Coin
The Collection
Digable Planets
Eddie Roberts & the Lucky Strokes
Judy Anne Jackson
Lake Street Dive
Louis the Child (playground set)
MiniM
Mt. Zion Gospel Choir
Rebirth Brass Band
The Rumble
Shelby Sol
Steelin’ Peaches
Surf Mesa
Tampa Metro Youth Orchestra
Trevor Hall
Yonder Mountain String Band
Young The Giant

February’s festival marks the first time GMF makes its home at Julian B. Lane, just a short walk upriver from Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park and Kiley Garden where the nonprofit festival launched in 2012.

Last year, citing “water intrusion issues” reported in a 2021 valuation by Walter P Moore engineering firm, the City of Tampa told CL that it would not issue permits for GMF to use Kiley. Not including retrofitting for a new drainage system, the firm estimated the probable cost of the base repair recommendations for Kiley at $9 million-$11 million.

GMF continued to use Curtis Hixon for its 2023 festival where day two was kneecapped by a thunderstorm, but also added stages Water Street, Sparkman Wharf and at the Sail Pavilion outside the Tampa Convention Center. The adaptation marked the first time the festival left park grounds since 2016, when it used MacDill Park, also just a short walk from Kiley.

The GMF sitemap for Julian B. Lane finds all the music coming back to one location, which will be home to four stages, including a mainstage in the southeast corner of the park closest to the river. There are also stages near the park’s state of the art boathouse, a “Fortune” stage on the football field, and a stage near the park’s south west entrance near N Boulevard. The festival’s popular silent disco, happening Friday and Saturday, will also abut the festival kidzone, which hosts a Kids Fest on Sunday after gates open.

GMF’s outdoor food hall—Calle Cocina, which has traditionally featured the best of Tampa’s culinary palette—is set to take over the southern strip of Julian B. Lane.

“We loved having the different stages along the Riverwalk last year, and it has been great to be able to work with our incredible partners at Water Street, the Straz Center and the Tampa Convention Center who are big supporters of live, local music,” David Cox, GMF’s executive director, told CL. “We are looking to grow those partnerships even more in 2024 during GMF weekend to have music throughout downtown. We are also excited this year about being in a venue where we can accommodate more stages, musicians, activations, food, and fans in a central location.”