Pre-sale tickets go on sale today for the 2017 Firefly Music Festival.
The pre-sale offers a $249 general admission pass for the four-day event in Dover.
While lacking a superstar line-up that a year earlier featured Paul McCartney, the mid-June 2016 festival that concluded Sunday, saw large crowds and ended up being a near sellout, according to the organizer, Chicago-based Red Frog Events.
The 2016 festival did feature strong line-up that included Mumford and Sons, Kings of Leon and Florence and the Machine.
The strong turnout eased fears that the festival might be less of a priority for Red Frog, after the cancellation of the Big Barrel country music event after one year.
Held at the Woodlands on the Dover International Raceway property, Firefly enjoyed a run of good June weather with no excessive heat, although rain greeted early attendees.
Firefly continues to aid the Kent County tourism economy, which has seen lower attendance from the two NASCAR weekends each year in Dover and stiff competition facing the county’s two casinos.
This year is expected to see the opening of a Las Vegas-style MGM Grand casino in National Harbor, MD, across the river from Washington, DC, at one time a big market for Kent County casinos.
The festival’s impact on hotels has been muted by continuing upgrades to camping areas at the site of the weekend event. Attendees with bigger budgets can use the site’s “glamping” facilities that include showers, expedited check-in and other features. The glamping area was listed as a sellout.
State and local support for the event has remained strong, with Gov. Jack Markell stopping by to help kick off this year’s Firefly as he had done in years past.
The City of Dover eased some permitting and jurisdictional problems by annexing a portion of the Firefly area this year.
