PHILADELPHIA — The lineup for the 2022 Firefly Music Festival has been announced, with the four-day gathering at the Woodlands in Dover, Delaware, set to host Green Day, Halsey, My Chemical Romance and Dua Lipa as headliners.
Other notable names include Weezer, Big Sean, Little Simz, Charli XCX, 100 Gecs, The Kid Laroi, Bleachers, Willow, Zedd and Philly's own punk standouts Mannequin Pussy. For the second year in a row, Firefly will be a major event on the fall festival calendar, taking place from Thursday, Sept. 22, through Sunday, Sept. 25.
Firefly, which is produced in conjunction with promoter AEG Presents, which also puts on California's Coachella festival, was held in September for the first time in 2021.
The fest was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but had been regularly staged in June since its inception in 2012. With Firefly's shift to the fall, September is now the biggest month for music festivals in the Philadelphia region.
Jay-Z's Made in America holds a permanent place on the calendar on Labor Day weekend — Sept. 4 and 5 this year — and the WXPN-produced Xponential Music Festival in Camden, New Jersey, also made a move to September last year, in a transition from the summer that was planned pre-pandemic. Acts for the fests in 2022 have not been officially announced.
This year's Firefly headliners aren't quite as buzzworthy as the 2021 slate, when Billie Eilish made one of her first appearances since the pandemic began.
But it's still got plenty of pop, with recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Green Day, who headlined Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last August, and two native North Jersey acts in Halsey, the pop singer born Ashley Frangipane who's touring behind her Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross-produced album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, and veteran emo rockers My Chemical Romance. British dance-pop singer Dua Lipa, who put on a highly entertaining show at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday, will close the Firefly festival on Sunday night.
Other intriguing names on the bill include former teen star Avril Lavigne , whose album Love Sux comes out Friday; rapper Benny the Butcher, who is also playing the Roots Picnic in June; Grammy-nominated rapper Gunna; British DJ-producer Jamie xx rising indie songwriter Indigo De Souza; British electronic duo Jungle; and, of course, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith's now pop-punk daughter Willow.
Passes will be available via a presale that begins at 10 a.m. Friday on fireflyfestival.com; sales to the general public start at 10 a.m. Monday.
