| Virgin Mobile Fest | |
|---|---|
 Virgin Mobile Fest logo | |
| Genre | Rock |
| Location(s) | United States, Canada |
| Years active | 2006 - 2013 |
| Website | virginfestival.ca |
The Virgin Fest, known as the Virgin Mobile FreeFest in the United States, was a rock festival held in the United States and Canada,[1] a spin-off from the V Festival held in the UK. In North America the Virgin name, and more recently the Virgin Mobile USA brand, were used in full to increase brand association, compared with the UK and Australian festivals, where association is simply implied through the use of the letter V.
Like the other variants of the V Festival, the events were sponsored by Virgin Mobile, in this case, either the U.S. or Canadian versions.
On June 30, 2006, Virgin Group chief Richard Branson announced the inaugural shows. The first, which took place in 2006 on September 9 and 10 at Toronto Islands Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, featured over 40 artists. A single-day show also took place in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, on September 23, 2006, at the Pimlico Race Course with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Who.[2]
Virgin Festival 2007 took place in Vancouver on May 20 and 21, as well as a return to Pimlico Race Track[3] in Baltimore for an expanded two-day event on August 4 and 5 and Toronto on September 8 and 9. On October 16, 2007, an event was announced to take place in Calgary, Alberta, on June 21 and 22, 2008. The festival also returned to Baltimore on August 9 and 10, 2008.
The shows in Baltimore were put on by Seth Hurwitz's I.M.P. Productions, owner and operator of the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., and the former producer of the HFStival.[citation needed]
In 2007, Richard Branson was encouraged by Daryl Hannah to green the Baltimore festival by bringing in zero waste event producers The Spitfire Agency.[citation needed]
The 2009 Virgin Mobile Festival, dubbed the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, was held on August 30, 2009 at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. The festival returned to Merriweather on Saturday, September 25, 2010,[4] and was once again a free event.[5] The Virgin Mobile FreeFest also returned to Merriweather Post Pavilion on September 10, 2011. The tickets were reported to have "freed out" in just over five minutes after being available. The headliners for the 2011 Virgin Mobile FreeFest were Deadmau5 (house), Cee Lo Green (hip-hop/pop), and the Black Keys (indie).
