CMA Fest, the annual, multi-day music festival in downtown Nashville will not take place in 2021. The CMA announced the news on Tuesday (March 2), citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for the cancellation of the event for the second year in a row.

The statement expressed that “thoughtful deliberation” went into the situation, while the latter notes that the organization is “deeply disappointed” to have to cancel the festival again.

Country music fans are disappointed but we get it.  The new dates are June 9-12, 2022.

“We know that many of our performers and attendees will ask why we cannot reschedule our event to take place later in 2021; however, to produce CMA Fest at the scale we normally do requires a significant amount of advance planning and production,” the note to members says.

“Given the length of our production window, it was simply impossible to find an available window later this summer or into the fall.”

Not sure if this is a sign of more festivals being cancelled.  Time will tell.