Florida's Tortuga Music Festival Postponed Over Outbreak

Fort Lauderdale’s Tortuga Music Festival will no longer take place next month as planned. Sticking to recommendations from health and safety authorities, officials have announced the festival’s postponement in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The annual beachside gathering was scheduled for April 17-19 with country titans Tim McGraw, Miranda Lambert and Luke Bryan pegged as headliners. Kelsea Ballerini, Pitbull, Barenaked Ladies, Jon Pardi, Billy Currington and Cole Swindell were among the dozens of others also confirmed to take part.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis announced that the festival would not occur as planned but revealed that it will likely be rescheduled for sometime this summer, according to the Sun Sentinal. The move comes after a new recommendation by the CDC called for the limit of public gatherings of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks.

Tortuga recently announced that it would welcome actress/singer Rita Wilson to its stage this year. However, Wilson has since revealed she and husband Tom Hanks had tested positive for the coronavirus and were being quarantined in Australia.

South Florida has already seen a string of large-scale entertainment events be called off due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The first and largest gathering to be cancelled was Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, which was estimated to draw over 150,000 attendees from dozens of countries. The Miami Open tennis tournament was next to be axed despite organizers initially calling for the event to take place unchanged. In addition, the area’s MLB, NHL, NBA and MLS teams have also been affected as their seasons have been put on pause for the time being.