EVERETT — A local music nonprofit announced Monday that it would end the Fisherman’s Village Music Festival, an annual festival that drew music fans to downtown Everett for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The Everett Music Initiative, the nonprofit that ran the Fisherman’s Village festival and also puts on the annual Music at the Marina events at the Everett waterfront, wrote on social media<\/a> Monday that ending its flagship<\/a> festival “allows us to dedicate the time and resources toward producing many more special, loud nights in our city.”<\/p>\n “Fisherman’s Village may be ending, but the music and the movement is far from over,” the nonprofit wrote.<\/p>\n In 2012, the Everett Music Initiative began booking individual shows in Everett, but it took two years before the nonprofit was able to launch its first festival, Fisherman’s Village, in 2014, according to the organization’s website. That event grew over time and continued through 2025. Last year, 20 performers took to the stage<\/a> during the three-day festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ryan Crowther, the founder of the Everett Music Initiative, cited a number of reasons for the closure in an interview Tuesday. The cost of insurance, sound production and artist guarantees have risen year over year, he said.<\/p>\n “It’s really hard to continue growing a festival and growing the lineup and figuring out a way to do that without passing those expenses to the festivalgoer,” Crowther said.<\/p>\n Crowther also cited dwindling interest in a festival that’s about “music discovery,” he said, as the smaller-scale festival featuring up-and-coming bands had to compete with bigger names in music.<\/p>\n The Everett Music Initiative will continue running its other events, including the popular Music at the Marina festival that the nonprofit is hoping to grow<\/a> from eight weeks of waterfront performances to nine weeks through community donations. It also recently began hosting a weekly open mic night at the Everett bar El Sid. The second weekly open mic event — featuring at least 20 performers, according to Crowther — will take place 7 p.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n Crowther said that ending the Fisherman’s Village festival was “bittersweet,” but the organization remains excited about the future due to its other events.<\/p>\n “In order to build a thriving nonprofit, you have to make tough decisions,” Crowther said. “Seeing all of the growth that’s happened in the last year with Music At the Marina, Rock the Boat, and our ongoing events, we knew it was the right choice.”<\/p>\n Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; <\/em>william.geschke@heraldnet.com<\/em><\/a>; X: <\/em>@willgeschke<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Everett Music Initiative is ending the Fisherman’s Village Music Festival, the nonprofit’s flagship event that was first held in 2014. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1126,"featured_media":863158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1038,2,1024],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-863157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/heraldnet.com\/2026\/02\/17\/everett-music-festival-to-end-after-12-years\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Everett music festival to end after 12 years","url":"http:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/2026\/02\/17\/everett-music-festival-to-end-after-12-years\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/2026\/02\/17\/everett-music-festival-to-end-after-12-years\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/02\/41605163_web1_TSR-FishermansVillage-EDH-250517.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/02\/41605163_web1_TSR-FishermansVillage-EDH-250517.jpg"},"articleSection":"Local News","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Will Geschke"}],"creator":["Will Geschke"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"HeraldNet.com","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2026-02-17T09:30:00Z","datePublished":"2026-02-17T09:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T20:48:57Z"},"rendered":"