A festival that has traditionally been one of the first of festival season may be no more. New Orleans’ own BUKU Music + Art Project has always gone down in early March, a few weeks prior to Ultra Music Festival. This is the festival where Porter Robinson debuted his Virtual Self project and where Dog Blood made its epic return in 2019. BUKU was always one of the funkier festivals out there. We’re not sure whether it was COVID, the increasingly terrible economy, or crushing inflation that caused this, but any of those are pretty good reasons to take a pause.
After COVID cancellations threw the festival off its game, now the organizers are calling off 2023 and all future editions as they plot a new way forward. The organizers say that the current BUKU model is not working and they have no idea what the future will hold. New Orleans is not typically home to much in the way of dance music, so this is a tough pill to swallow for that region.
Here’s hoping BUKU finds its way back once again down the line.
