Music Midtown is an annual September music festival that takes place at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. This year, it took place on September 14 and 15. The lineup for the 2019 festival was announced in June and consisted of four main headliners: Travis Scott, Panic! At the Disco, Billie Eilish, Vampire Weekend, and 28 other artists and bands.

After attending the festival last year, the lineup was shocking to me. It wasn’t the same stacked lineup as past years and it showed with the audiences. When the lineup first came out, I felt like everyone I knew was not going because the artists “weren’t good enough” to spend all the money to go. 

Despite the lineup, the weekend never disappoints. The artists that I wanted to see were mostly split up at times ands stages that my group could actually get to. We saw every single person or band that we wanted too, and had little trouble attending them. 

Despite the setup, the crowds were not as packed as years prior. They sold out tickets for the 2018 festival, which was not the case this year. When you walked into the park, you could actually breathe without having another human on top of you. 

The only artists that genuinely had a packed crowd were Lizzo, Cardi B, Lil Yachty and Travis Scott. The crowd for Lizzo and Cardi B on Saturday were backed all the way to the stage behind theirs, despite Lil Yachty also playing at another stage across the park at the same time.

Sunday, Billie Eilish was a main headliner that I thought would be the most crowded, maybe only being passed in attendance by Travis Scott. The second she came on stage the whole crowd physically shook the ground with screams, but no one could hear her. Within seconds of the first song every person around us realized that her microphone wasn’t turned up enough. We knew the songs beat but couldn’t hear any of her lyrics. The fact that we were not far back from the stage, the people in the very back of the audience most definitely could not hear. This was a major disappointment. Not being able to hear one of their main headliners was a major flaw in the weekends performances. 

Despite that disappointment, MØ’s performance was intense and overall my second favorite of Sunday. She started her performance on the fence in front of the fan’s on the side of the middle tent with the sound system. It just so happened my group was on the fence in the exact spot she sat. She even went as far as to hop over the fence and followed by only one security guard, sang her song while walking through about 25 rows of fans on both her left and right side. It was insane and the way she connected with her whole audience on a physical level was outstanding.

The closer of the whole festival was Travis Scott. His concerts are well known for their intense mosh pits and his performance did not disappoint. The crowd was wild and I lost count of the amounts of mosh pits that were created throughout his entire set. I did not see one person in the entire crowd standing still. It was a good way to end the festival and overall it topped Kendrick Lamar’s closing of the 2018 festival. 

It was overall worth the experience, time and money. I will definitely be attending again for the third consecutive year.