A new kind of festival: Breakaway Columbus drops their 2018 lineup

Breakaway Festival isn’t super new – in fact they launched in 2014 at Mapfre Stadium, hosting a lineup that today would fill the stadium several times over. Headlined by Bassnectar and Empire of the Sun, the event featured late afternoon sets from twenty one pilots and Kendrick Lamar.

The ambitious idea to put an EDM and hip hop focused festival (with a smattering of other genres represented) turned out to be just slightly ahead of it’s time, and for that reason Breakaway took a couple of years off to recalibrate. They returned in a big way, first at the Ohio State Fairgrounds with Chance the Rapper and Lil Uzi Vert at the helm just before they REALLY popped off.

If you think about it, a hybrid hip hop/EDM focused event is savvy. In my extremely limited knowledge of live production, I am assuming this format allows for more streamlined set up and set changeovers between artists while still keeping things diverse enough to draw from multiple audiences. However, the event is niche enough and the concept new enough that the promoter behind the event, Prime Social Group, can reach for the cream of the crop in their lineups.

The inaugural Breakaway was one day at Mapfre Stadium in Columbus, and had a second location in Dallas. Now, Breakaway exists in five (!) cities. Their biggest lineup yet will take over Columbus August 24-26th of this summer. You can view the lineup below and grab tickets here.