Firefly Festival sold to AEG; 2019 dates announced

The founders of Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival have sold the festival to AEG, Delaware Online reports. The article states that the move comes four years after AEG and its subsidiary Goldenvoice partnered with Red Frog Events “to help produce and promote Firefly, becoming its majority owner.” Here’s more:

AEG recently acquired Red Frog’s remaining shares.

“Red Frog identified a fantastic site, a great partner in Dover International Speedway and had a vision that they executed really, really well,” said Melissa Ormond, chief operating officer of festivals for AEG Presents, told The News Journal in a Wednesday morning interview from Ireland.

…AEG instantly made its heft visible after joining with Red Frog by helping land Paul McCartney as a headliner for the 2015 festival, giving Firefly its first 90,000-person crowd.

…With AEG acquiring Red Frog’s remaining ownership shares, the takeover of the seven-year-old festival by one of the world’s biggest live music companies is complete. Even so,organizers says fans will not see many radical changes, but improvements and tweaks are inevitably on the way.

Firefly has also announced the dates for 2019, which will be June 20-23. The festival always used to take place Father’s Day Weekend, but it moved back a week for 2019 after Bonnaroo moved to Father’s Day Weekend for 2019.

Firefly began in 2012 and it has noticeably grown since. This year’s headliners were Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Arctic Monkeys, and The Killers.

AEG also owns Coachella, NYC’s Panorama, many NYC venues, various professional soccer and hockey teams, and much more.