Farm Aid will return to New York for the first time in 11 years on September 21st, 2024 for a day-long concert at Broadview Stage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs.
The lineup for the annual agricultural fundraiser features Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews (with guitarist Tim Reynolds). This news comes after Young last month canceled all remaining summer tour dates with his band Crazy Horse after multiple members fell ill.
Also set to perform are Mavis Staples, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson with The Travelin’ McCourys, Charley Crockett, Joy Oladokun, Southern Avenue, Cassandra Lewis, and Jesse Welles, with more artists to be announced. This will mark Lukas Nelson’s second live collaboration with The Travelin’ McCourys this year after they played a joint set at DelFest over Memorial Day Weekend—shortly before Willie’s son announced he would put his longtime backing band Promise of the Real on hiatus while he continues solo.
“We’re energized to be back in New York,” Farm Aid president and founder Willie Nelson said in a statement. “The farmers here have always found ways to innovate and contribute to their communities, even as they deal with uncertainties, extreme weather, and policies that favor corporations over people. Farmers need us to stand with them as they work to grow our future.”
This will mark Farm Aid’s third appearance in New York and the second time in Saratoga Springs. In 2007, the benefit concert made its Empire State debut at Randall’s Island Park in New York City, followed by a trip to SPAC in 2013. In addition to a day of music, the event will feature an array of locally grown food and other agricultural experiences. Tickets for Farm Aid 2024 go on sale to the general public on Friday, July 26th at 10 a.m. ET via Live Nation.
According to a Farm Aid press release which cites the 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census, New York state has lost 3,000 of its 33,000 farms between 2017 and 2022. These local producers face new issues of rising production and labor costs, consolidation, and abnormal weather patterns. Though Wisconsin is officially known as the Dairy State, New York has almost 3,600 dairy farms that produce 15.7 billion pounds of milk each year, making New York the country’s fifth largest dairy state.
Last year’s Farm Aid yielded some major surprise guests, with unannounced appearances by Sturgill Simpson and Bob Dylan. Country singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson made his first onstage appearance in two years when he came out to jam with Bob Weir & Wolf Bros and Margo Price—all of whom played together again four months later at the Grateful Dead-centric Dead Ahead festival in Mexico. Dylan’s surprise set with The Heartbreakers was another sign of things to come, as the Nobel Prize-winning singer-songwriter is on the road this summer with Willie Nelson’s traveling Outlaw Festival tour. Revisit Live For Live Music‘s full recap of Farm Aid 2023 here.
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