Inaugural Blessing in Disguise Music Festival, with headlines Macklemore and AJR, to take place Saturday

After years of preparation, Matt Meyer’s dream of bringing a major Spokane music festival to life – with Washington native Macklemore as headliner – will come to fruition Saturday.

Although Meyer, director of entertainment for Spokane Public Facilities District, and his team have been working on this weekend’s inaugural Blessing in Disguise Music Festival for about three years, the vision goes back to 2016. A year later, Meyer and his wife produced Tinnabulation Music Festival, also known as Tin Fest, a downtown event that featured over 50 bands in three days.

As ONE Spokane Stadium began to break ground, the cogs began to turn once again. Meyer knew the venue’s capacity of about 17,000 would finally be enough to draw A-listers, the kind of musicians and bands difficult to ignore. The first of those household names came from the Outlaw Music Festival Tour in 2024, featuring Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan alongside John Mellencamp and Brittney Spencer. Nelson and Dylan returned in 2025, as well.

It was at the first Outlaw Music Festival concert that Meyer began pitching the idea of using the venue for a music festival of Spokane’s own to Creston Thornton, leader of the “mountain region” for multinational entertainment company Live Nation. The two conversed about the venue’s potential in a press booth until about 1:30 a.m.

“Just chatting about everything; what we envision the stadium being able to handle and being used for, potential shows coming through, and that’s when I brought this up,” Meyer said. “Probably a month or two goes by and I sent him off like a Google Map with a bunch of sharpie marker outlines on where stages could possibly go and very rough drafts like one step above a napkin print.”

It took months of garnering financial estimates and mapping event operations before work could even truly begin. Once the festival was approved by the city and Live Nation became an official partner, the timeline began to take shape.

“That’s why it takes so long. At that point, when you figure into it, you haven’t even done any work that could be seen, it’s all internal,” Meyer said. “Even in my own internal employees, there was only a couple that knew what I was doing because I was asking for estimates or seeing what we could do here or there, but they didn’t have the full scope of it.”

Initially, the plan was for Blessing in Disguise to take place last year. Meyer and Thornton have been dead set on having a Washington-born and proud artist headline the inaugural year, and Seattle’s Macklemore was at the top of the list considering the state’s love for the multi-platinum artist known for songs like “Thrift Shop,” “Can’t Hold Us,” “Glorious,” and “Downtown” – which has a music video filmed in Spokane.

Meyer and Thornton had been in touch with Macklemore’s team, but before plans were set in stone they committed to a number of concerts in Europe that summer. The two collectively decided the timing just wasn’t right and that they would wait another year to ensure Macklemore as headliner. His manager also happens to manage pop-rock band AJR, which is now part of the festival’s bill.

“I feel like Spokane might be like a second hometown for Macklemore,” Meyer said. “Bring him in, have him kick this thing off and start it up. And hopefully him performing and making his mark here will help kick this off and bring this in for years to come.”

Meyer said that being the festival’s first year, they expect to reach about half capacity and may lose money as they hope to build the brand and make Blessing in Disguise a recognizable event year after year.

This year, Meyer expects economic impact to be around $1.5 million to $2 million dollars while a sell out would look like $4.5 million to $5 million dollars. Meyer’s goal is to grow the event to a two-day festival that would double those numbers.

Meyer said this data is based on numbers from local events, venues and the stadium’s own performances, such as the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival. He also said that the economic growth could be larger than expected because about 40% of current ticket sales are coming from outside a 50-mile radius of Spokane while those projected numbers rely on local data.

“A lot of people excited that the day is coming,” Meyer said.

Other bands include AWOLNATION, Allen Stone, Mother Mother, Everclear, Hippie Sabotage, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Stephen Day, Izzy Escobar, Vienna Vienna, Ayron Jones, Tim Montana, Chinese American Bear, Gunnar, Frances Browne, the Jaws of Brooklyn, the Residency, Not.GreenDay and Nothing Shameful.