Music festivals in New York City

Governors Ball is the big weekend. It started on Randalls Island, spent two years at Citi Field and has been in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, since 2023 - three days in early June, three stages and more than 60 acts, with food from New York restaurants and Queens Night Market vendors. The crowd is young and mostly local, and the move to Queens means the 7 train toward Mets-Willets Point does most of the work of getting people in and out. June weather in the park can turn fast; thunderstorms have cut festival days short before, so a light rain layer is worth more than anything else you pack.

The rest of the summer is spread across the boroughs. SummerStage, run by City Parks Foundation since 1986, puts on dozens of shows across Central Park and around a dozen neighborhood parks each season - a mix of free concerts and paid benefit shows, covering indie, hip-hop, Latin, jazz, dance and world music, with the season running into early fall. The Blue Note Jazz Festival, which began in 2011, takes the club's name out of the Village in summer and books rooms around the city, from the Blue Note itself to Sony Hall, The Town Hall, SummerStage, the Lena Horne Bandshell in Prospect Park and National Sawdust in Williamsburg.

Lincoln Center's Summer for the City runs from June to August on the Upper West Side campus, with outdoor programming on Hearst Plaza and an open-air dance floor, silent discos and dance series; outdoor events are free general admission, and some indoor performances are choose-what-you-pay. A practical note for all of it: bars at festivals and park shows card for 21+, so bring a physical ID, and check each event's age and bag policy before you go. The list here shows the festivals and outdoor concerts on sale in the city right now.