Rock bands Weezer, Blink-182 and Franz Ferdinand and hip-hop group Public Enemy will headline a downsized Virgin Mobile Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion, organizers announced Tuesday.
The festival, formerly a two-day affair held at the sprawling Pimlico Race Course, has been scaled back to one day, Aug. 30, and moved to the smaller Columbia amphitheater. But in a surprising change of course for the four-year-old event, this year's festival will be free, officials said.
"In a time of economic challenges and daily sacrifices, we wanted to throw a fantastic party so people could let loose and have a great time - on us," Richard Branson, founder and president of Virgin Group, said in a statement.
To accommodate the Virgin Mobile Freefest, Merriweather will be outfitted with multiple stages and a dance tent and expanded to hold nearly 35,000.
Virgin Mobile customers and previous Virgin Mobile Festival-goers will get first pick of the free tickets, which will be distributed through Ticketmaster on Thursday and Friday. Parking will also be free, officials said, and there will be no convenience charges for tickets picked up at Merriweather or the 9:30 Club in Washington.
"I suppose people will think that there must be a catch, but there really isn't," producer Seth Hurwitz wrote in an e-mail.
When it debuted in 2006, the festival boasted headliners the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Who, and drew about 40,000.
"When Virgin Mobile first suggested to me that we throw this year's festival for free, I was like, 'Um ... OK,' " Hurwitz said in a statement. "I thought they were crazy. But then again, Virgin's always done things a little differently."
