VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Three weeks following the City of Virginia Beach’s second installment of the Something in the Water music festival, Oceanfront business owners are pushing back on the idea of holding the event on a different weekend next year.
In a letter sent to City Council last week, the Atlantic Avenue Association said their board “unanimously supports leaving SITW on the last weekend in April, and the weather up to God.”
This is in response to a tweet sent out by festival founder Pharrell Williams on the evening of Sunday, April 30, after rain canceled a day-and-a-half of the three-day festival, that said “Next year we will shift the dates because this rain ain’t playing, but we will be!”
The association said moving the weekend of the festival would defeat the reason the festival was created. They also appeared to take issue with the musician’s tone in the tweet, saying it was done “without process, city planning or consultation.”
However, Deputy City Manager Taylor Adams suggests the festival’s return next year isn’t even guaranteed.
“There has been no request for the current or a different weekend for next year. But I’m hoping we’ll have something soon,” Adams said in an interview this week. “If there is an event organizer, interested in running a festival here. We simply get a letter of intent or a request or an offer and that we then take to City Council to get City Council to react to.”
This story will be updated.