Life Is Beautiful, the annual music, arts, culinary and comedy festival in downtown Las Vegas, has been canceled this year, but organizers are vowing to find ways to help the community and return in 2021.
What was to be the eighth annual outdoor gathering in September was expected to draw 175,000 over three days.
"It's clear the health and economic hardships from the Covid-19 crisis will impact us all for some time to come," festival organizer Justin Weniger said. "In light of this, we made the determination to re-examine the role Life is Beautiful plays in the community and how we can put our resources, creativity and time into doing what we always set out to do: inspire and bring together a community."
The Life Is Beautiful team is working to create initiatives that will impact supporters on a local, national and global scale in addition to making a full return with the festival in 2021, Weniger said.
"From the beginning, Life Is Beautiful has been a year-round, aspirational mantra that materializes into a festival that unites visitors from around the world," Weniger said. "For this year, that festival won't happen, but there has never been a more important time to remind us all that life is indeed beautiful. That is what we are going to do, in ways large and small."
Life Is Beautiful, first held in 2013, takes place on 18 city blocks and has been among the catalysts for change in the often-overlooked downtown area beyond Fremont Street. A number of murals painted on buildings for the festival through the years remain.
Chance the Rapper, Billie Eilish, Portugal the Man, the Black Keys, Rufus du Sol, Janelle Monae, Post Malone, Vampire Weekend, Zedd and Rae Sremmurd were among the performers last year.