The fall 2020 edition of Las Vegas music, art and culinary festival Life Is Beautiful will not take place this year, due to the public safety and economic obstacles arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, festival organizers announced today. The fest's eighth edition had previously been scheduled for September 18-20.

In an email, the festival promised a return to Downtown Las Vegas in 2021, and provided this statement: “We were more excited than ever to share the vision of this year’s festival with you. Instead, this moment has given us the opportunity to pause and assess what is truly important. It has given us the space to reflect and to grow, to refocus on our work, and to find new ways to give back to our community beyond the three days of the festival.”

The cancellation of the outdoor festival comes amid a flurry of canceled concerts, tours and festivals, as the unpredictability of the coronavirus makes concrete scheduling difficult at best. Some large regional events, such as Burning Man, have been canceled entirely, while others such as Coachella and EDC have postponed until October.

In the absence of a fall festival, Life Is Beautiful intends to step up its community involvement, Life Is Beautiful CEO Justin Weniger said.

“It’s clear the health and economic hardships from the COVID-19 crisis will impact us all for some time to come,” he said by email. “In light of this, we made the determination to re-examine the role Life is Beautiful plays in the community and how we can put our resources, creativity and time into doing what we always set out to do: inspire and bring together a community.… From the beginning, Life is Beautiful has been a year-round, aspirational mantra that materializes into a festival that unites visitors from around the world. For this year, that festival won’t happen but there has never been a more important time to remind us all that life is indeed beautiful. That is what we are going to do, in ways large and small.”

Past Life Is Beautiful music headliners have included Kanye West, The Killers, Foo Fighters, Kendrick Lamar, Imagine Dragons, The Weeknd, Arcade Fire, OutKast, Muse, Post Malone and The Black Keys.