Tom Morello has announced the Power To The People Festival, a one-day event set for Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. The festival will go on sale first through pre-sale on Friday, May 29 at 10 a.m. EST, with general ticket sales opening Saturday, May 30 at 10 a.m.
Morello made the announcement onstage at Nationals Park on Wednesday night, May 27, during Bruce Springsteen’s set, turning a concert stop into the launch point for a new festival built around music and activism. He described it as a non-partisan celebration of peace, justice, solidarity, music and community action, and said it was about the power everyday people have when they come together through art, community and action.
The event is designed to have commercial weight and civic purpose at the same time. It will feature performances across two stages from Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Brittany Howard, Dropkick Murphys, Jack Black, Serj Tankian, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike, grandson, Taylor Momsen, Matt Cameron, The Linda Lindas and Morello himself. Jack Black’s set will include Roman Morello, Revel Ian, Yoyoka Soma and Hugo Weiss, while Shepard Fairey will contribute artwork, a DJ set and the festival poster.
That mix of concert bill and campaign language is also the festival’s built-in contradiction. It is being framed as non-partisan, but it is anchored by a civic-engagement space called Freedom Village, where attendees can speak with nonprofit groups, advocacy organizations, artists and community partners about grassroots organizing, education, mutual aid and other social-impact work. The proceeds are tied directly to VoteRiders and HeadCount, both nonpartisan groups focused on voting access and registration.
A portion of all ticket sales will go to those organizations, and 100 percent of the net proceeds from VIP tickets will be donated to them. For Morello, who staged the 2011 L.A. Rising event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the new festival extends a familiar formula: a major rock lineup used to draw a crowd, then asked to leave with something more than a ticket stub. What remains open is how quickly the festival will fill and whether the final turnout matches the scale of the bill.
For now, the next step is clear. Fans get first access on Friday, then the general public on Saturday, as Morello tries to turn a single October day in Maryland into both a concert and a civic gathering.
