SweetWater 420 Fest is returning in 2025 with a lineup mixing classic and more current jam bands, hip-hop, rock and Americana acts including Cypress Hill, the Revivalists, Greensky Bluegrass, Drive-By Truckers and Marcus King.
The festival, which debuted in 2005, is returning to Kirkwood’s Pullman Yards, where it moved last year. Tickets are on sale now starting at $60 for a one-day passes and $165 for three-day passes at sweetwater420fest.com and will take place April 18 to April 20, 2025. (April 20, of course, is considered a celebration of cannabis culture.)
The organizers this year have opened ticket sales more than four months in advance, giving them far more time to sell tickets than last year, when they made the lineup announcement just nine weeks before the actual festival. When advance tickets fell short, the festival decided to drop some major acts like Black Pumas and Beck and make the festival free, save for a donation to the Waterkeeper Alliance, a longtime nonprofit group that protects rivers, lakes and other water bodies around the world.
Last year’s two-day event drew 16,000 people. This year, SweetWater has returned to three days.
“We created a hell of a music festival last year,” said Patrick Clark, SweetWater senior manager for sponsorships and experiential, “but we want to create a community festival and a festival driven to support our green initiatives at the company.”
Added Evan Woolard, SweetWater senior brand manager: “Our goal is to bring those 16,000 people back and with the third day, add a few more believers to the festival so we can keep the momentum going.”
The festival is adding a VIP stage for up to 2,800 concertgoers willing to pay for a $240 three-day pass. Several acts will do special acoustic sets for the VIPs.
Woolard said this year’s music line up “is very much tied to our roots, tied to artists you’ve seen at 420 Fest before” like the Revivalists and Cypress Hill, who will perform on April 20. Clark is excited to see Sierra Hull, a mandolin player and Grammy-nominated folk artist.
Credit: SWEETWATER 420
Credit: SWEETWATER 420
Organizers are also creating a beer garden featuring not just SweetWater 420 beers but beers from sister breweries from around the country.
“At the end of the day, it’s a celebration of our craft beer culture,” said Prinze Pinakatt, chief growth officer for New York City-based Tilray Brands, which has owned SweetWater 420 since 2020. Tilray owns several breweries nationwide.
They are adding a bike and scooter valet and are encouraging people to use ride sharing and MARTA since parking is limited.
Credit: (Photo credit to Eitan Miskevich)
Credit: (Photo credit to Eitan Miskevich)
SweetWater 420 Fest began in Oakhurst with 3,000 attendees in 2005. It then spent several years at Candler Park.
At its peak, the festival was held at spacious Centennial Olympic Park, drawing tens of thousands of people. But the organizers moved to SweetWater 420′s own personal brewery property in 2023, shrinking its footprint and lineup significantly, citing safety issues. The move may have been tied to ongoing legal fallout from a 2014 ruling, which made it harder for Georgia organizers to ban firearms at short-term private events held on public land.
It also moved because Centennial Olympic Park’s owner, the Georgia World Congress Center, decided to stop pursuing festivals on its property and did not renew its contract with SweetWater.
Credit: Photo by Andy Tenille
Credit: Photo by Andy Tenille
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