Worst Best Festival: Moogfest Moogfest is probably super cool if you’re a deep electronic-music head and/or a tech enthusiast. But if your interest in those fields is anything less than intense, it feels like a scatterbrained behemoth that papers over downtown Durham for a weekend in the interest of attracting hordes of moneyed nerds. Did I love getting to walk home in a pensive daze after seeing Jenny Hval? With my whole Hval-obsessed heart! Could I have afforded to enjoy her set if it weren’t my job? Definitely not. In an area where music festivals thrive because they feel both of and for this place, Moogfest does neither. —Allison Hussey
Best Worst Festival: Moogfest I want to “yes, and” Allison, because Moogfest does seem designed for a chimerical customer who likes Kelela, Author & Punisher, and Pete Rock, and who makes $100,000 a year in tech. But if I’m being honest, I’ve had more fun there than at Hopscotch recently. For electronic heads starved for concentrated doses of big artists and big sound in big rooms, Moogfest serves up transcendent shows by luminaries like Jon Hopkins and dance-focused sets by well-curated DJs. It’s no shot at invaluable Triangle dance hubs like Nightlight, the Pinhook, and Ruby Deluxe to say that Moogfest, while it’s not as Durham as we like things in Durham to be, fills a certain niche for touring electronic music. If they can make it cheaper and broaden access, I’m so here for it. —Brian Howe
Most Festival: Art of Cool This year, Durham’s Art of Cool Festival had a major glow-up, due in part to a change of ownership. In March, Art of Cool cofounders Cicely Mitchell and Al Strong announced that they’d sold the music-festival arm of their jazz-education nonprofit to the DOME Group, a promotional company in Detroit. Erykah Badu headlining the Durham Bulls Athletic Park gave ample evidence of the festival’s solidity, and it also finessed a rare reunion out of the beloved Little Brother. Detroit or no, this couldn’t have happened anywhere but Durham. —Allison Hussey
Ghost Festival: Dreamville J. Cole’s festival was to be the premier hip-hop event in the state. Scheduled for September in Raleigh’s Dorthea Dix Park, the event—which had Cole, Nelly, SZA, and Young Thug as headliners—had a projected attendance of more than thirty thousand. But then Hurricane Florence hit, and the festival was postponed until April 6, with a new lineup that has yet to be fully announced. Here’s hoping April showers won’t wash this one out, too. —Allison Hussey
Steadiest Festival: Hopscotch The Triangle’s signature music festival held pace this year, but with a lot of returning bookings and self-consciously retro headliners, the experience started to feel distinctly rote, and we hope that Hopscotch will find some new tricks next year. We’ll always be grateful for that Chic booking, though. —Brian Howe
Readiest Festival: IBMA The International Bluegrass Music Association is a slow-moving institution, one that’s loath to allow much room for those who don’t fit within the institution’s narrow definition of “bluegrass” or youthful progressivism at large. This year, however, one of the festival’s headlining sets at Red Hat Amphitheater was an all-woman ensemble that included luminaries like Alison Brown, Gillian Welch, Rhiannon Giddens, and more. It’s a small step in a good direction. Keep going. —Allison Hussey
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