Yonder Mountain String Band plays Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park in Tampa, Florida on Feb. 18, 2024. Credit: Photo by Ysanne Taylor / c/o Gasparilla Music Festival
After being forced to take a break in 2025, Tampa’s long-running Gasparilla Music Festival (GMF) returns this spring at a new venue on the north end of downtown Tampa’s Water Street neighborhood.
GMF Executive Director David Cox told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the festival will happen over three days—Friday-Sunday, April 10-12—at and around the Meridian Fields site near Channelside and most recognizable by the old silos left standing after the demolition of Tampa’s Ardent flour mills.
Tickets for Gasparilla Music Festival 2026 go on sale today, Wednesday, Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. EST and start at $85 for a three-day general admission pass. A three-day VIP pass is $210. Cox told CL that a band lineup and information on single day passes will be available in the coming weeks.
Founded in 2012, the nonprofit music festival serves the Gasparilla Music Foundation, which utilizes its Recycled Tunes program to refurbish musical instruments and places them in schools across Hillsborough County.
Powered by a board of locals, the festival didn’t even miss a year during the pandemic, opting instead to give fans two festivals in one calendar year to make up for lost time. GMF started to run into bad luck in 2023 when rain forced the cancellation of a headlining set by Run The Jewels, and bumped into more wet weather when it staged a solid, albeit soggy, debut at Tampa’s Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park.
GMF’s resurgence, Cox said, speaks to the will of the people involved, who have always seen the festival as a long-range project.
“Sometimes that forces you to make some tough decisions,” Cox noted, adding that GMF has not been immune to rising and volatile prices, along with venue challenges. “It’s a lot for us to just keep kind of pushing down the same path. We needed to pause, regroup, and look at what the next 10 years could look like.”
Ultimately, Cox said, they reminded themselves that the foundation serves the community year-round and stages a festival to showcase Tampa’s local music and arts scene.
“Even when we said we were going to take this year off, longtime supporters understood. They said, “we’ll be there for you when you’re coming back.,” he added. “So it’s really a good feeling to see how much not just our attendees, but just other other groups and companies and people that have supported the festival for years, want to continue to support it forever.”
Water Street Tampa is among those supporters and has signed on as the 2026 title sponsor.
“The Gasparilla Music Festival needed a place to land, and we had space that was open and ready,” Josh Taube, CEO of Strategic Property Partners (SPP), which operates Water Street Tampa, wrote in a press release. “It felt like the perfect fit for right now, and a great way to give this festival the stage it deserves.”
Water Street Tampa is where GMF has spent three years putting on the popular Beats on the Street festival, and partners with GMF for over 200 local music performances a year.
Cox would not tell CL if GMF had a multi-year agreement with Water Street and SPP, but said that he does see a future at the site.
Meridian Fields proper is owned by the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority, but GMF will utilize space around the fields as well.
A Google Maps image of Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority’s Meridian Fields site in Tampa, Florida. Credit: Screengrab via Google Maps
A tentative Gasparilla Music Festival 2026 site plan shared with CL shows the main gate situated near the intersection of S Meridian and E Cumberland avenues. The mainstage sits north, with a second stage closer to the old flour mills still standing after the relocation and demolition of Tampa’s Ardent Mills which opened there in 1938.
Cox anticipates 10,000 daily attendees, and notes that the site—11.5 acres according to a press release— itself can hold up to 20,000 people. That capacity is much larger than GMF’s beloved original home of Curtis Hixon Waterfront and Kiley Gardens, and is about the same as its last venue Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park, but organizers won’t try to pack the venue.
Cox told CL there will be smaller stages throughout the site, but noted that GMF will also stage free-to-attend performances within Water Street and Sparkman Wharf before and during the festival.
“We’re not trying to max out,” Cox said. “Our focus at GMF is the attendee, and band hospitality—we want to make sure the food lines are moving, there are plenty of restrooms, all that stuff.”
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This article appears in Dec. 11 – 17, 2025.
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