Monterey Jazz Festival, scheduled for September, is canceled due to Covid-19.

The show will not go on this year. 

The 63rd Monterey Jazz Festival, scheduled for Sept. 25-27, 2020, has been canceled due to Covid-19. The next festival will be Sept. 24-26, 2021, and organizers are hoping to rebook most of the artists for next year and are calling it a postponement—the first in the legendary festival's 62-year history. 

"Safety remains the festival’s top priority during these unsettling times, and the decision to postpone was made after carefully considering the continued threat of Covid-19 into the fall as well as national, state and local restrictions on travel and large event gatherings," according to a statement from MJF. 

This year is Artistic Director Tim Jackson's 30th anniversary at MJF. 

The lineup included well-established acts like Herbie Hancock, George Benson and Pat Metheny, and younger artists like Miho Hazama and m_unit, and artists who go well outside of the jazz tradition, like Latin Grammy Award winner Lila Downs and MacArthur Genius Award winner Rhiannon Giddens and Our Native Daughters. Grammy-nominated pianist and composer Christian Sands was set to be the 2020 artist-in-residence. 

The artists who were booked for 2020 will be invited to return in 2021. "We are hoping to retain as many of the current artists as possible, but some of them might already have fall 2021 plans in the works. We’ll see how many of them keep on the schedule," festival spokesperson Timothy Orr says.

Patrons who already purchased tickets to the 2020 festival have three options: Donate the value of their tickets to the nonprofit festival; transfer the tickets to the 2021 festival; or request a full refund no later than July 17.

Festival organizers are hoping most ticket-holders choose the first two options—donate or hold their tickets until next year—as they review contracts and explore which 2020 costs can be recovered from the venue (the Monterey County Fair and Event Center) and various contractors. 

Only renewals and three-day tickets had gone on sale so far this year; single-day tickets hadn't been made available. 

Early sales were a little lower than last year at this time, "because of the hesitancy of people to purchase in these uncertain times," Orr says, "but we were well on our way, despite us not doing a full marketing push."