Virgin Festival

Virgin Festival
Virgin Mobile Fest logo
Genre	Rock
Location(s)	United States, Canada
Years active	2006 - 2013
Website	virginfestival.ca

The Virgin Fest, known as the Virgin Mobile FreeFest in the United States, was a rock festival held in the United States and Canada,^[1] a spin-off from the V Festival held in the UK. In North America the Virgin name, and more recently the Virgin Mobile USA brand, were used in full to increase brand association, compared with the UK and Australian festivals, where association is simply implied through the use of the letter V.

Like the other variants of the V Festival, the events were sponsored by Virgin Mobile, in this case, either the U.S. or Canadian versions.

On June 30, 2006, Virgin Group chief Richard Branson announced the inaugural shows. The first, which took place in 2006 on September 9 and 10 at Toronto Islands Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, featured over 40 artists. A single-day show also took place in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, on September 23, 2006, at the Pimlico Race Course with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Who.^[2]

Virgin Festival 2007 took place in Vancouver on May 20 and 21, as well as a return to Pimlico Race Track^[3] in Baltimore for an expanded two-day event on August 4 and 5 and Toronto on September 8 and 9. On October 16, 2007, an event was announced to take place in Calgary, Alberta, on June 21 and 22, 2008. The festival also returned to Baltimore on August 9 and 10, 2008.

The shows in Baltimore were put on by Seth Hurwitz's I.M.P. Productions, owner and operator of the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., and the former producer of the HFStival.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, Richard Branson was encouraged by Daryl Hannah to green the Baltimore festival by bringing in zero waste event producers The Spitfire Agency.^{[citation needed]}

The 2009 Virgin Mobile Festival, dubbed the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, was held on August 30, 2009 at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. The festival returned to Merriweather on Saturday, September 25, 2010,^[4] and was once again a free event.^[5] The Virgin Mobile FreeFest also returned to Merriweather Post Pavilion on September 10, 2011. The tickets were reported to have "freed out" in just over five minutes after being available. The headliners for the 2011 Virgin Mobile FreeFest were Deadmau5 (house), Cee Lo Green (hip-hop/pop), and the Black Keys (indie).

The Virgin Mobile Freefest line-up was announced at 11AM on July 20, 2010.^[8]

Artist T.I. canceled his performance due to ongoing legal issues.^[9]

The Virgin Mobile FreeFest was held at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. In an official statement released by Virgin Mobile, it was stated that due to the current economic conditions, admission to the festival would be free of charge for all concertgoers. The sponsor hoped that concertgoers would donate $5 to youth homelessness through its charitable initiative known as the RE*Generation. Concertgoers could also purchase special packages that came with a T-shirt, as well as tickets and the donation.^[10][11]

Sunday, August 30

Friday, June 19

Saturday, June 20

The venue was the Citadel Hill concert site, adjacent to the Halifax Common.

Saturday, July 4

Tragically Hip cancelled due to family medical issues.

Saturday, July 25

Sunday, July 26

Saturday, August 8

Sunday, August 9

Saturday, August 29

Sunday, August 30

Saturday, June 21

Sunday, June 22

Switch and SebastiAn were replaced by MSTRKRFT due to delayed flights.

Massive Attack were originally scheduled to headline but three days before the concert, it was announced that they had to postpone the first four concerts of their North American tour, including the Virgin Festival appearance, due to delays in receiving U.S. visas. They were replaced by Broken Social Scene.

• Olympic Island Festival

• Virgin Festival Archived 2006-07-05 at the Wayback Machine Official Canadian site