Beale Street Music Fest is back at Tom Lee Park, but with several changes: What to expect

After four years, Beale Street Music Festival will return to its historic home at Downtown’s Tom Lee Park this week.

Following a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a one-year move to the Fairgrounds at Liberty Park due to ongoing construction at Tom Lee, the festival’s return to the Mississippi riverfront will be something of a homecoming for event organizers Memphis in May.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Randy Blevins, Memphis in May’s vice president of marketing and programming. “The staff and hundreds of Memphis in May volunteers are excited to be back Downtown at the scenic riverfront home for Beale Street Music Festival.”

It’s not yet clear if the familiarity of Tom Lee will bring a sense of stability to Memphis in May — whose events also include the upcoming World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest — which has been in the midst of a troubled and uncertain period since 2020.

Memphis in May reported the 2022 events at the Fairgrounds at Liberty Park — the first full festival held since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic — resulted in a $2.23 million loss for fiscal year 2022, the largest in the organization’s 46-year history. The organization's total losses related to the pandemic years were close to $4 million.

Additionally, for much of the past year, there has been ongoing and very public drama between Memphis in May and the Memphis River Parks Partnership, which oversees Tom Lee, about the festival's return the riverfront. It's a battle that pulled in the City of Memphis and Mayor Jim Strickland, and which — at various points — seemed to threaten the future of the fest.

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While the location of this year’s music fest will be familiar, the setup at Tom Lee will have noticeable differences from past years, due in part to the ongoing $61 million renovation of the park.

“Fans will see some changes in the layout due to the ongoing redesign work,” Blevins added. “But most importantly, the music is back on the river.”

Here’s a look at how this year’s music fest — set for Friday-Sunday — will look, feel and even taste different.

Blues moves to Beale Street

Due to space limitations at Tom Lee, the festival’s Blues Tent — a long-running and signature part of the event — will no longer be at the park, but has been reborn as the Memphis Tourism Blues Stage on Beale.

In January, Memphis in May announced the new Blues Stage, sponsored by Memphis Tourism, would take place at Handy Park on Beale Street and would be open to the public and free of charge. The Blues Stage on Beale will run concurrently with the festival and will feature performances by notable names including Los Lobos, Keb’ Mo’ and the North Mississippi Allstars.

Memphis Tourism President Kevin Kane said Memphis in May pitched the idea as a way of continuing to offer the traditional blues and roots music the festival was built on.

"We didn't want to lose the Blues Tent because quite honestly there's a lot of people that only go to music fest because of the blues artists," Kane said. "So we agreed to sponsor the stage at Handy Park and we're excited — it's a great lineup with some great performers, like there are every year. We feel it's gonna be a wonderful new element to the music fest experience."

Memphis in May noted the free Blues Stage's move to Handy Park would ultimately allow the fest “to offer its famous blues lineup to a wider audience.”

A greener Tom Lee Park

One difference festivalgoers will find is in the park itself, as Tom Lee continues to undergo a major renovation.

Work on the park — which Memphis River Parks Partnership officials say is 80% complete — has been paused to allow Memphis in May to go on. The renovated park is slated to have its official opening during Labor Day weekend.

“The park is still unfinished, so there will be a lot of fencing up to protect areas from Memphis in May and to decrease any potential damage risk," said Carol Coletta, CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, which oversees Tom Lee.

But Coletta added, “The park has many new features that people haven’t seen before."

“The most obvious is the landscaping,” she said. “It’s a much greener place to be, a much cooler place to be with more shade, and a much more beautiful place to be. It will be a prettier place to experience the event.”

More than 1,000 trees have been planted, including oaks, birches and tulip poplars, officials said during a recent media tour. An untold number of shrubs, bushes, flowers and other species also have been planted.

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Fewer big name headliners

Even the most generous observer would have to describe the 2023 Beale Street Music Festival’s headlining acts as lacking a certain buzz, certainly compared to past years.

The top billed performers — Greta Van Fleet,  The Lumineers, Earth, Wind & Fire, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss — are all solid draws, but few offer the contemporary profile or cultural relevance of recent headliners like Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Post Malone and others.

It’s not clear if the lack of a true "hot" draw is a function of Memphis in May’s financial issues, or whether those kinds of artists simply weren’t available. (Memphis in May declined to respond on that question). But it feels like the fest — while still strong in the middle and lower parts of the bill — doesn’t quite have the same excitement at the top of its lineup.

Fewer food vendors

The number food offerings at this year’s Beale Street Music Festival will be slightly scaled back. Last year, there were 30 vendors offering everything from healthier vegan fare to fried foods. This year that number of vendors looks to be closer to 20.

Memphis in May officials note that many of the longtime festival favorites — including Pronto Pups, Fresh Gulf Shrimp, MemPops and Yancey’s — will be back.

A selection of vendors from around the country — among them, Island Noodles, the Gouda Boys, Chicken Mac Truck, Toby’s, Meltdown Gourmet and Big G’s Barbecue — will be set up. And several new vendors — Coco Grub N Go’s, Lumpy Mash Potato, Ice Cream & More, and Fistful of Tacos — will expand the kinds of offerings available this year.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Beale Street Music Festival: What's different at Tom Lee Park?