Va. Beach gives Something in the Water 5-day deadline over contract breach

After receiving a brief reprieve, the clock is ticking for organizers for Pharrell Williams’ Something in the Water music festival. Organizers were given five days to make significant progress in meeting Virginia Beach’s requirements for a lineup of performers and a start to ticket sales, city officials decided Tuesday.

If organizers do not meet the city’s expectations by end of business Monday, they’ll be in breach of contract, and the two-day concert in late April will likely be canceled.

“I’m calling it,” said City Councilor Amelia Ross-Hammond, who recommended giving the festival a grace period earlier in January, after organizers failed to meet a Dec. 31, 2024, deadline to provide the city with a full lineup of announced performers and begin ticket sales for the April 26-27 Oceanfront event.

A council liaison to the festival, Ross-Hammond moved to defer an agenda item Jan. 7 giving Something in the Water a five-day deadline, and the council voted 8-2 in agreement. Mayor Bobby Dyer, who had requested the resolution setting a deadline, noted that hoteliers and other city businesses had asked to give the festival organizers more time. However, Ross-Hammond asked City Manager Patrick Duhaney and his staff begin reporting weekly to the council on the festival’s progress.

At Tuesday’s informal council meeting, Deputy City Manager Amanda Jarratt had little news to report.

“They’ve maintained positive momentum towards bringing the festival to fruition,” Jarratt said. “They’ve also indicated that they are in active communication with event sponsors but remain impacted by the destruction associated with the L.A. fires. We have not received any information regarding ticket sales or the release of a lineup from festival organizers. In addition, there’s been no official communication related to a definitive timeline to receive this information. We have not received official confirmation related to their contractors and support teams necessary to support an event of this magnitude.”

Dyer and Ross-Hammond noted that the 90-day window for the festival was approaching, and that the city would need that time to work on public safety measures for the two-day concert.

“We don’t have any definitive answers, we don’t have any contracts right now to look at,” Ross-Hammond said Tuesday. “We’ve put out the welcome mats, we’ve done the grace, we’ve done the deference for a certain amount of weeks, and it’s coming back the same-old same-old. I’m looking at calling this now.”

Ross-Hammond thanked fellow councilors for supporting the earlier deference, and she handed the matter to the mayor’s judgment without a full council vote. Directing Duhaney and his staff to set a five-day deadline for SITW organizers to cure the breach, Dyer said that he and other city officials “wanted to give their full effort” to the festival, which has been a moneymaker in 2019 and 2023 for the city coffers and nearby businesses.

The 2019 festival brought in $24 million in revenue for Hampton Roads, and a report prepared for the city found that the 2023 festival generated an economic impact of $26 million to $29 million for the City of Virginia Beach.

“Unfortunately, our backs are to the wall,” Dyer said Tuesday.

Council member Michael Berlucchi asked Duhaney what precisely the cure would need to be for SITW to avoid default. “The cure would have to be acceptable to the city,” Duhaney said. “I’m not sure what the cure would be.”

Berlucchi said he wanted to avoid confusion among the public, the city and concert organizers, but Duhaney noted that the acceptable cure would involve a “nuanced discussion.”

SITW’s team did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

After a successful debut in 2019, Something in the Water was canceled in 2020 and 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Williams decided to host SITW in Washington, D.C., instead of Virginia Beach, after his cousin was shot and killed by a Virginia Beach police officer.

The festival returned to Virginia Beach in April 2023, with some canceled performances due to tornado threats and lightning. Williams then scheduled the 2024 festival for October 2024, but just after tickets went on sale last September, he unexpectedly called off the festival, writing, “Virginia doesn’t deserve better, Virginia deserves the best. So, Something in the Water has to match that. It just isn’t ready yet.”

After that, the city required SITW organizers to sign a contract with specific deadlines in order to receive $500,000 in funding from the city.