Music Midtown

Music Midtown is a large music festival that was held in Atlanta annually from 1994 to 2005, and after a six-year hiatus, returned in 2011. During its original run, the festival ran on one weekend each year. The event drew in excess of 300,000 attendees per year during its peak years. Music Midtown started as a two-day event with three stages. It later grew to three-day event. During the years that Music Midtown had a three-day run, the event had six main stages. Each of these stages were typically sponsored by a local Atlanta radio station which were used to present dozens of bands playing a wide variety of musical genres. Due to a decline in attendance and rising expenses after the 2005 Music Midtown, promoters placed the festival on hiatus in 2006. The hiatus ran through 2010. The festival returned as a one-day event in 2011, and expanded to its current two-day format in 2012.

The festival was conceived by Atlanta-based music promoters Alex Cooley and Peter Conlon who sought to create an event similar to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The intent was to present a wide variety of music that both men had come to enjoy during their careers in the music industry.

In 1994, the festival launched on a parcel of undeveloped land at Peachtree St. and Tenth St. in the heart of Midtown's business district. After a few years at this site, the festival was forced to move to make way for the construction of the new Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The new festival site chosen was in downtown just north of Centennial Olympic Park and consisted mainly of closed-off streets and surface parking lots which made for a hot and somewhat unpleasant experience for daytime concert-goers. This site is now home to the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola museum. This led to a brief stay of two years after which the festival moved to the 42 acre (170,000 m²) location adjacent to the Atlanta Civic Center and now closed SciTrek. After finding this new home, the festival grew dramatically and attracted around 300,000 attendees during its peak years.

...
Wikipedia