Bunbury Music Festival


The Bunbury Music Festival is a three-day music festival in Cincinnati, Ohio at Sawyer Point Park & Yeatman's Cove on the banks of the Ohio River. Each annual event typically features over 100 acts performing on three to six separate stages through the park. The festival was founded by MidPoint Music Festival co-founder and former Fountain Square managing director Bill Donabedian. The festival's inaugural event took place July 13–15, 2012. In 2014, Bunbury was purchased by PromoWest Productions, an entertainment company operating out of Columbus, Ohio.
The most recent iteration of the event occurred May 31 through June 2, 2019.

List of events

DatesHeadlinersAttendance
July 13–15, 2012Jane's Addiction, Weezer, Death Cab for Cutie
50,000
July 12–14, 2013The National, Fun, MGMT
60,000
July 11–13, 2014Fall Out Boy, Paramore, The Flaming Lips
June 5–7, 2015The Black Keys, The Avett Brothers, Snoop Dogg
54–56,000
June 3–5, 2016The Killers, Ice Cube, Mudcrutch, Florence and the Machine
43,000
June 2–4, 2017Muse, Wiz Khalifa, G-Eazy, Bassnectar, Pretty Lights
June 1–3, 2018Jack White, The Chainsmokers, Post Malone, Incubus
May 31 – June 2, 2019Fall Out Boy, Greta Van Fleet, The 1975, Girl Talk, Run the Jewels
June 5 – June 7, 2020Twenty One Pilots, Marshmello, The Avett Brothers, Kane Brown, Melanie Martinez, Angels & Airwaves

Namesake

The name "Bunbury" was chosen by festival founder Bill Donabedian after he heard the word used in Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest. He chose the word because he thought it sounded whimsical and he liked the definition: "to have a made up excuse to get out of doing something boring." In Wilde's play, the character Algernon utilizes the fictional character named Bunbury as an excuse for getting out of undesirable situations such as family events. Not to be confused with the Western Australian city of Bunbury.