Pharrell Williams Postpones Something In The Water Festival to 2025: 'It Just Isn't Ready Yet'

The past few years of the festival have been marred by inclement weather, location changes, and more.

September 14, 2024
Pharrell Williams
 
(Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Just a month before Pharrell’s Something In The Water festival was set to take place in Virginia Beach, VA, he announced that the event has been postponed to next year.

On the day that pre-sale tickets for the event went on sale and the festival's lineup was set to be revealed, Pharrell announced that the festival is not ready yet.

“Dearest Virginia, I love you with all my heart,” he wrote. “Nobody loves you more than I do. Virginia doesn’t deserve better, Virginia deserves THE BEST. So SOMETHING IN THE WATER has to match that. It just isn’t ready yet. That’s why we as a team have decided that we must postpone this year’s SOMETHING IN THE WATER festival that was due to take place in October.”

Pharrell continued on, explaining that he wants it to be the best it can be. “This is not a Pharrell festival, this is the state of Virginia’s festival so it has to be the best. Virginia made me, and I want to honor it with as much love as it’s shown me my entire life. And you know me, everywhere I go it’s VA,” he wrote.

Pharrell’s latest Something In The Water Festival was originally supposed to happened in April of this year before Pharrell pushed it to October. It’s the latest move for the troubled festival that’s had its fair share of issues since its debut in 2019.

The next two years after its debut were canceled because of the pandemic — and then ahead of its return in 2022, Pharrell moved it from Virginia Beach to Washington, D.C. because of the shooting death of his cousin by Virginia Beach police and the unsatisfactory response he received from them afterward.

In 2023, the festival returned — but on the third day, it was canceled because of inclement weather. That festival included performances from Lil Wayne, The Clipse, Summer Walker, Grace Jones, Kid Cudi, Kehlani, and more.

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