St. Louis festival MATI, formerly known as Music at the Intersection, is making a big move this year. Not, of course, from its longtime home in Grand Center, but rather from the increasingly crowded month of the calendar it has occupied since its first iteration back in 2021.
This year’s event will take place over the weekend of July 17–19, a considerable shift from its usual mid-September slot.
Get a guide to the region’s booming music scene
Subscribe to the St. Louis Music newsletter to discover upcoming concerts, local artists to watch, and more across an eclectic playlist of genres.
According to Chris Hansen, executive director of Kranzberg Arts Foundation, which organizes the fest each year, the move is partly in response to the many additional events that have cropped up in the early fall over recent years.
“We’ve spent five years doing it in September, and when we started, September wasn’t quite as cluttered with amazing opportunities for art and culture and music events,” Hansen says. “But since we started, you’ve got festivals like Evolution producing. You’ve had The Muny start doing live music again. The Confluence NASCAR race moved to September. There’s another event in O’Fallon, Missouri, that’s a hip-hop event that’s in September. So it’s just become a wildly cluttered time of year.”
Shifting to the summer offers additional advantages for MATI outside of the smaller amount of competition on the calendar, according to Hansen. St. Louis sees a flood of college students return to their hometown, for one, who may find themselves thirsty for all that a homegrown music festival has to offer. There’s also the usual influx of leisure and cultural tourism that the summer months bring, making for yet another pool of potential attendees from which to draw. And there are some practical upsides around booking international touring artists, who are often already on the road during the summer—especially those traversing the Canadian jazz festival circuit.
Of course, there’s a reason that September has found itself a crowded time for outdoor events in St. Louis: the relatively mild nature of its weather. Recognizing that July is likely to see the mercury rise by comparison, MATI’s organizers have opted to move the musical acts indoors for 2026 and make use of the many stages that already exist in Grand Center, including The Sovereign, The Big Top, Jazz St. Louis, Sophie’s Artist Lounge, and, for the first time this year, The Fox Theatre.
Befitting the MATI experience fans have grown to love, though, the festival will still have plenty of outdoor activities on offer—and this year, that aspect of the fest will be totally free. The block party portion of the event will start each night at 5 p.m. and will see Washington Avenue closed off to traffic between North Leonard Avenue and Josephine Baker Boulevard, featuring “live music (including national DJs), a performance-art stage, a roller skating rink, carnival rides, pop-up fashion shows, mural and art exhibits, the blooming business market, and tastes of St. Louis’ favorite culinary dishes,” according to promotional materials.
READ MORE: MATI 2025 in review
“We continue to rely on and promote the built infrastructure and businesses of the neighborhood,” Hansen says. “And folding the Fox Theatre in as one of our main stages this year [ensures] that summertime comfort in our ticketed indoor venues, with comfort and air conditioning and all the things that you like in July, but [we are] still keeping that outdoor component with a free-this-year Washington Avenue block party.
“So we’ve kept it accessible, we’ve kept it affordable, and we’ve increased the comfort and overall just ease of the experience,” he adds.
Additional free experiences will include the MATI Places performances and workshops at The Key, Urban Chestnut, and High Low, as well as the annual thought leadership conference, which will be returning to .ZACK with panel discussions, keynote speakers, and more for those creatives and entrepreneurs more interested in the business and networking aspects of the event. Blind presale tickets for a full weekend pass are priced at $99 and go on sale February 13 at 10 a.m. Those early birds who purchase at that price point also get their choice of seats for select orchestra or balcony seating at The Fox’s headliner performances on Sunday, July 19, with the option to upgrade to premium orchestra seats.
The lineup for the festival will be rolled out in the coming weeks, according to Hansen, including the performers for a special kick-off concert at The Fox on July 16. The $99 weekend passes will be offered until 25 percent of capacity has been filled, the next 50 percent will be sold at $109, and the final 25 percent will cost $129. Single-day tickets will be available as well, in addition to VIP options and the opportunity to donate additionally to the nonprofit-led event as a MATI Member. For tickets and more information, visit matistl.org.
