2019 Hawai‘i Island Steel Guitar Festival Canceled

October 13, 2019 • Addison Ching • Festivals and Conventions

The 2019 Hawai‘i Islsand Steel Guitar Festival has been canceled.

The off-again, on-again festival was rescheduled for December 13-15, 2019, at the request of the Mauna Lani Auberge Resorts Collection to help celebrate the hotel's re-opening after more than a year of hotel renovation. The hotel's $200M renovation project started in October, 2018, and was scheduled to be completed in about a year.

Construction delays and contractor problems extended that date out to the end of 2019, and the hotel had hoped to reopen in the December timeframe. The hotel subsequently notified festival producer HIMELE that they did not expect the hotel to be occupancy-ready by the rescheduled festival date and requested that the festival be postponed until early 2020.

HIMELE is working with the Mauna Lani to present a steel guitar festival on February 7-9, 2020 to help the hotel celebrate its grand re-opening. The format and program content of this festival will be similar in scope and size to the canceled 2019 festival.

This special festival will not impact scheduling of the 2020 Hawai‘i Island Steel Guitar Festival which is tentatively scheduled for December 11-13, 2020, at the Mauna Lani Auberge Resorts Collection.

Partial funding for the February, 2020,festival is provided by Hawai‘i Tourism through the Community Enrichment Program, and partial funding for the December, 2020, festival will be provided by Hawai‘i Tourism through the Kūkulu Ola Program.