The High Sierra Music Festival revealed its new home for its 34th edition, persisting past mounting financial struggles that put the future of the event in jeopardy.
For 25 years, the four-day family-friendly music event has been in Quincy (Plumas County), bringing an array of intimate performances to the small Northern California town. Next year’s iteration, set for July 2-5, will see festivities move roughly two and a half hours south to Grass Valley’s Nevada County Fairgrounds.
High Sierra Music Festival: July 2-5. Tickets start at $71. Nevada County Fairgrounds, 11228 McCourtney Road, Grass Valley. www.tixr.com
“I think it’s going to help us tremendously,” festival co-owner and producer Dave Margulies told the Chronicle. “Quincy, as lovely as it is, is really quite remote, and Grass Valley is very accessible.”
Margulies said he had been searching for the right location for the festival over the past year, since the Quincy contract expired this summer after July’s event. Grass Valley’s proximity to major population centers, airports and accommodations made it a great fit.
“We are working tirelessly to make this transition as seamless as possible,” the festival wrote on Instagram in announcing the news Wednesday, Oct. 1.
Organizers plan to host a livestream on the social media platform at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, where they will discuss the move in more detail and answer questions from followers.
Early-bird tickets are on sale now.
Pre-pandemic, the festival sold an average of 6,000 tickets a year. But sales dropped to roughly 4,000 since then, with this year’s barely clearing more than 2,000 - a historic low.
“It was so bad,” Margulies said, telling the Chronicle at the time that he was considering calling off this year’s event. “But we realized the repercussions of canceling. That to me would signify the death knell of the brand.”
Now Margulies is more optimistic than ever. While the festival has only signed a one-year contract to be in Grass Valley, he said he hopes to extend it for years to come.
“I’m incredibly energized by the prospect and the feedback and buy-in that we have from staff,” he said.
This year’s lineup included performances by Palo Alto bluegrass musician Molly Tuttle, Saratoga rock group ALO and East Bay hip-hop artist Lyrics Born.
The 2026 lineup has not been announced yet.
Oct 1, 2025
Zara Irshad is the Chronicle's Arts & Entertainment Engagement Reporter. She joined the Chronicle as a summer 2023 intern for the Datebook team. She is a recent graduate of UC San Diego, where she studied communications. She previously interned for the San Diego Union-Tribune and wrote for her campus newspaper, the Guardian, where she served as editor-in-chief. Irshad was part of the honors program for her major and double-minored in world literature and film studies.