Breakaway Festival Confirms Headliners at Fair Park in Dallas

Breakaway Music Festival, the annual celebration of all things electronic, dance and music, will return to North Texas in 2025 at a new venue with an all-new feel.

The first Breakaway Festival in North Texas was in 2013 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco. Back then, it was a much different festival with headliners Juicy J, Wu-Tang Clan and Ra Ra Riot. The inaugural lineup certainly drew a healthy crowd, but the festival wasn't as successful as was hoped.

"We had quite the challenge of getting people up there," says festival co-founder and CEO Adam Lynn. "The first one was in Columbus at the Columbus Crew Stadium, which was owned by Lamar Hunt Jr. and the Hunt family. Breakaway is headquartered in Columbus, so that's why it made sense for us to do the show there. But when we got on the phone with them, they said, well, by the way, if you're doing this thing in Columbus, we'd love for you guys to bring this to our venue and Dallas."

At the time, it sounded like a good idea, but Lynn confesses that he didn't know the first thing about Dallas at the time.

"The downtown crowd didn't want to drive 45 minutes north up to Frisco, especially when nothing was up there at the time. I remember the only thing that was up there was ["breastaurant"] Twin Peaks," Lynn says with a chuckle. "Now I've heard Frisco is booming. Instead of doing the festival, I should have bought a bunch of real estate up there."

Breakaway stayed in the Buckeye State in 2014 and 2015 as the festival's founders decided to focus on the Ohio market. In 2016, the festival expanded regionally to markets in Michigan, North Carolina, Nashville and Kansas City. The Breakaway Festival returned to Texas in 2018 with an appearance in Irving, retaining its dual focus on hip-hop and electronic music. But this time, festival organizers are approaching Dallas differently.

"When we launched it, it was hip-hop, electronic and then maybe a mix of pop, and I think one of the early lessons we learned was really to just try to hone in on one audience," Lynn says. "I think we were trying to be Lollapalooza-light ... trying to go too big is sometimes how you end up falling on your face. And we fell on our face, but we made it back."

Aiming for an attendance of 10,000 to 15,000 fans, Breakaway will bring its 2025 festivities to Dallas's Fair Park for the first stop of the tour.
Among the headliners will be Slander, Zedd, Afrojack, GRYFFIN and Louis The Child. Sixteen national touring acts include Acraze, BUNT., Evan GIIA, Jackie Hollander and Kream.

The festival will have two stages: a main stage with mainstream house and techno music and a second stage that caters to the drum and bass audience. There will also be a kind of third stage in the form of a silent disco where three regional DJs will play on different channels at the same time.

Jarrod Fucci, president of Breakaway Festival, has made three trips to Dallas so far in anticipation of this week's announcement.

"Pulling together a lineup of this scale across multiple days and multiple stages, there's a lot of complexities and so we're just buttoning up those last few details," Fucci says. "Dallas seemed like a great market for us to kick off in. It's a very meaningful city for our brand partners, and that seemed to be the best state to come into the market."

Part of Breakaway's core ethos, in contrast to festivals like Coachella or even Austin City Limits, is to bring the music to places where people live, work and play every day.

"Rather than expecting people to travel to us, we like to travel to them," Fucci says. "We are purpose-built for people to attend right in their own backyards. We really love to take a 'people approach' to working with local cities, municipalities, townships, communities, that we are not just this big loud thing that comes into the marketplace."

To accomplish this, festival organizers hope to bring in local vendors, food and flair, by building a team of local ambassadors who are DJs themselves to perform and help promote the event, namely, Carlyle, Jakegatewood, Kenzi Sway and Sage.

Fucci says, "It's really fun to be able to come into a market, and then, year after year, you'll see these ambassadors continue to grow with us. In some of our legacy markets, they'll have played an opening slot at our silent disco and move to having a much more prominent spot on the silent disco and move on to opening the main stage. It's been really fun to watch the talent develop and evolve over the years, even coming and becoming paid talent on our shows after gaining more regional notoriety as they grow with their career."

Food is another way the festival looks to retain a local feel while expanding its national market.

"As we develop our program, food is a very meaningful part of what we bring to the festival," Fucci says. "We don't just like to come in with chicken tenders and fries. I love chicken tenders, but it's also nice when people come to an event and they see local food trucks. We do tented food and fresh-cooked food options on site of the festival as well, but there is an opportunity for food trucks to engage. They're on our website just via the 'Join Us' portal. Vendors or food partners are welcome to reach out and speak to our food concessions team to get set up and bring their restaurants to life within our festival space."

With so much focus on the local marketplace, Breakaway Music Festival is already earning praise from leaders in Dallas and Fair Park.

“It’s exciting to see such diverse programming make its way to Fair Park,” Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Bazaldua says. “Events like this showcase the intentional efforts Fair Park is making to become a true hub for culture, music and entertainment. I can’t wait to see our community come together to enjoy this amazing experience.”

“We’re pleased to host Breakaway Festival at Fair Park for its first appearance in Dallas,” says Stacey Church, general manager of Fair Park. “This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to activate Fair Park with vibrant new events that bring our community together and showcase this historic venue in exciting ways.”

Breakaway Festival will take place in Fair Park April 4–5, 2025. Tickets start at $134 and are available on the Breakaway Festival website.