OCEAN CITY, MD - Ocean City’s newest music festival has released the lineup for their upcoming debut in May.
Boardwalk Rock, scheduled for May 17-18, is the third and latest Ocean City music festival produced by C3 Presents. The festival joins the popular Oceans Calling and Country Calling as some of the resort town’s biggest events.
On Wednesday, December 11, Boardwalk Rock released their lineup including:
Def Leppard
Nickelback
Motley Crue
Shinedown
Alice Cooper
Helestorm
Bush
Chevelle
3 Doors Down
Bret Michaels
Three Days Grace
For the full lineup and ticket information, you can visit Boardwalk Rock’s website here.
The star-studded lineup has Ocean City officials and businesses much more excited for the spring.
"Amazing, so fun!" said Amy Thompson, Executive Director of the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce.
Wendy Di Buo, owner of the Crawl Street Tavern, said she's bummed she personally won't be able to attend the festival in-person. The good news for Di Buo, is her bar is just a few steps away from the boardwalk.
She said she's hoping her location will bode well for business, but what she's most excited about, is the timing of the festival.
"In the past few years, depending on the weather, depending on what's going on with the economy, many businesses have had slow starts to the season," said Di Buo. "I think this festival is going to be the jumpstart that we need."
The early year frustrations from businesses is what led the town to schedule Boardwalk Rock in the spring, rather than the fall.
"Spring is really where the businesses have said 'hey we need some help, we need help' because they're staffing up, especially early summer it's kind of a slow crank to get business rolling," said Thompson. "This is our local government putting their money where their mouth is and designing programs, designing events to bring guests into town in the spring."
It was just one year ago that the inaugural Oceans Calling festival took place. One year later, the town doubled down, hosting Oceans Calling and Country Calling on back-to-back weekends.
Now, the town is six months away from its third festival.
"We were really happy with the promoter, we were really happy with the way those events worked, he[promoter] was very pleased with how well they were received," said City Manager Terry McGean. "Ticket sales obviously, we've sold out every day."
McGean said the footprint of Boardwalk Rock will be similar to the layout of Oceans Calling and Country Calling. Meaning the boardwalk and inlet will be shaken to the core with electric guitars and hardcore drum solos come springtime.