Country Thunder relocates festival to Clearwater

The May 8-10 Country Thunder Music Festival has been denied permits for its planned St. Pete Beach location and will instead relocate to Coachman Park in Clearwater, marking a decisive turn in a weeks long dispute over environmental impact, permitting and public pressure.

“I’m really proud of all of the folks that advocated for this outcome, and especially for the town of St. Pete Beach, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation and DEP,” said Julie Wraithmell, executive director of Audubon Florida. “They were under tremendous pressure to issue those permits, and in the face of all of that they stood up for what was right.”

The move follows mounting scrutiny over the proposed beachfront event at TradeWinds Resort during sea turtle nesting season, which begins May 1 and triggers heightened regulatory review for activities on the sand.

While the festival had remained in limbo pending approvals from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Wraithmell said the outcome reflects the difficulty of securing authorization for large scale events in sensitive coastal habitats.

“We didn’t have any confidence they’d be able to get their permits, given what they were proposing and the vulnerability of that habitat and the resource out there,” she said.

Audubon had urged organizers to relocate or reschedule the festival, warning that the scale of infrastructure, including staging, lighting and beach obstructions, would conflict with protections for nesting sea turtles and shorebirds.

According to Wraithmell, those concerns also pointed to the challenge of meeting regulatory requirements for such an event.

“I think they may have underestimated how high a bar it was going to be, and how expensive and restrictive the mitigation and minimization were going to be,” she opined.

City officials had previously stated that the application for the event was incomplete and that no permits had been issued by either the city or the state. Events proposed west of the Coastal Construction Control Line during nesting season require approval from both state agencies before any local authorization can be considered.

The proposal also drew escalating opposition from wildlife advocates and public pushback, while conflicting claims between TradeWinds and environmental groups, including Audubon’s rejection of any involvement in the event, added to the uncertainty.

“I think it was that combined with the public outcry that generated the result,” she said.

Audubon had raised concerns directly with TradeWinds early in the process after learning of the festival despite having previously booked the resort for a 2026 conference. “I basically talked them through, ‘You may not realize what the impacts of this are. And I think you’re really going to have a hard time getting your permits,’” Wraithmell added.

TradeWinds had maintained that it was working with regulatory agencies and implementing mitigation measures, while positioning the festival as an economic driver for a beach community still recovering from the 2024 hurricanes.