This Year's Lollapalooza Festival Has Officially Been Cancelled

This year's Lollapalooza in Chicago has now officially been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Grant Park festival – which draws 100,000 fans over four days – was scheduled to take place this summer from July 30 to August 2, but will now be replaced with a streaming event across the weekend.

"We wish we could bring Lollapalooza to Grant Park again this year, but we understand why things can't move forward as planned," a statement from Lollapalooza reads. "The health and safety of our fans, artists, partners, staff and community is always our highest priority.

"Rest assured, we will be working hard behind the scenes to deliver Chicago a spectacular celebration of Lollapalooza's 30th anniversary in the summer of 2021, and we can't wait to celebrate with you."

Instead, the festival have announced a weekend-long stream on the dates that it would have taken place – the line-up of which is to be announced. However, Lollapalooza say that the virtual event – entitled Lolla2020 – will "include performances from around the city and beyond, epic archival sets from Chicago and the festival’s six international editions, never-before-seen footage from the 1990s and much more".

Clearly, streaming events are the way to go at the moment while we can't get to festivals. This weekend, for example, Download Festival are hosting Download TV, featuring many bands on the would-have-been 2020 line-up – including headliners KISS, Iron Maiden and System Of A Down – plus much, much more.

“Pitch your tent, erect your flags, put up your horns and get ready to mosh (at a socially responsible distance!)” said the team at the time of the announcement, promising “Unseen performances, special interviews, exclusive footage, interactive content”.

Read this: Download is more than just a festival, it changed my life