On Thursday, One Reel Executive Director Marty Griswold issued a statement that One Reel had been meeting with Seattle Center and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture to “lay out a new way forward.” No agreement has been finalized and, given Bumbershoot’s challenges, it could still shift. Both Seattle Center and One Reel said more would be announced in March.

The forecast for Bumbershoot has been cloudy for several years, but became particularly stormy last fall when megapromoter AEG decided to step away from its contract renewal option, putting the future of the festival in doubt. Two months ago, One Reel posted an image online saying, “Bumbershoot will be back next year,” but further details were lacking.

Griswold said Thursday that the 2020 event will likely look different than the multiday, big-ticket festivals of the past, but will maintain the unique nature of the in-city arts fest. “Our goal this year is to return to our core values of inclusiveness, community engagement and the ‘specialness’ that has always been part of what makes Bumbershoot feel different than other festivals,” he says.

The goal would be for a more affordable festival (last year’s prices were $109 per day). This would also likely mean more local music acts, and a scaled-down footprint on the Seattle Center campus, which will still be a construction site this fall. Bumbershoot has been a money loser for most of the past decade, and some of that is because KeyArena was not being used as a stage. The facility won’t be available this fall (as it undergoes massive transformation into a National Hockey League arena and new-and-improved home facility for the Seattle Storm), and perhaps not in 2021, either.