Big Ears Festival taking this year off, announces 2022 dates

Karma Oak

Knoxville's Big Ears was one of the festivals to be knocked out by the coronavirus pandemic, cancelling its 2020 edition just weeks before it was set to happen. They've just announced they'll be taking 2021 off as well but will be back for its 2022 edition, taking place March 24-27. They write:

It will be similar in scale and footprint to the 2017, 2018, and 2019 festivals. We are deeply immersed in the booking process already and I can assure you that we will once again have an extraordinary array of great musicians joining us for a spectacular weekend.

Big Ears says they will announce the 2022 lineup and put tickets on sale in late-September or early-October.

Meanwhile, the festival says it has a few outdoor, socially-distanced Knoxville events in the works for this year: "First, we anticipate offering a re-staging of John Luther Adams’ now iconic work, 'Inuksuit,' which we first presented at Big Ears in 2016. The performances will be free-to-the-public and are planned for mid-April. There are other projects under consideration that we hope to announce in the near future." They've also got a streaming performance by Lonnie Holley, details still to come.