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A May 14 downtown concert headlined by DJ D-Nice & Friends and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will anchor a week-long Preakness Festival, which Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott envision as a means to draw more attention, and paying customers, to one of Maryland’s signature sporting events.
The festival, set to begin May 10 with a free arts showcase celebrating Park Heights, will also feature a May 11 tour of Maryland horse farms, a May 12 ticketed golf tournament at the Baltimore Country Club in Timonium and a May 15 fundraising gala in Annapolis to support community initiatives.
Maryland first lady Dawn Moore, who has helped lead planning for the festival, said it’s “not just about honoring a storied tradition, it’s about building an inclusive future.”
“For this to be Maryland’s decade, it must be Baltimore’s time — and the inaugural Preakness Festival is one of the ways we make it happen,” Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement.
The festival, with the ticketed concert slated for May 14 at Pier Six Pavilion, represents a new plan for the second jewel of the Triple Crown, which will be run for the 150th time this May. After the race, bulldozers will move in to demolish the dilapidated track as the state moves forward on a $400 million plan to rebuild Pimlico and make it, along with a new training center in Woodbine, the headquarters for Maryland’s thoroughbred racing industry. State and industry officials hope a refurbished Pimlico will be ready to host the Preakness again in 2027 after the race is run at Laurel Park in 2026.
The governor and Scott announced plans for the new festival in December, saying the Preakness should be a time for Baltimore to “show off,” much as Kentucky does in the lead-up to the Kentucky Derby. The governor said his wife began pushing for a reimagined Preakness celebration after the couple visited the Kentucky Derby two years ago.
At the initial December presentation, officials planning the new festival noted how the Preakness lags behind the Derby in economic impact. They said the Derby generated $396 million in economic impact for Kentucky in 2023 while the most recent study on the Preakness showed it generated just $41 million for Maryland.
For years, the Preakness provided economic ballast for the state’s entire racing industry but has lost money in recent years, with crowds dwindling from an average of more than 100,000 in the decade before the coronavirus pandemic to 63,423 on Friday and Saturday last May, and the cost of booking concert headliners such as Bruno Mars and Jack Harlow increasing.
Festival organizers expressed confidence that the new events will eventually steer patrons to attend and bet on the race itself.
“That is the ultimate goal, to lift up communities, bring more tourists to engage in some of these events and activities and then carry that right through the weekend to Black-Eyed Susan and then the Preakness Stakes,” said Terry Hasseltine, President of the Sport & Entertainment Corporation of Maryland.
Dawn Moore said the festival will be a work in progress and is likely to expand after this year’s launch.
“We have the Derby as a tremendous model to look toward. We also have other opportunities that we probably don’t even know exist,” the first lady said. “What I think is that every year, we’ll reassess. We’ll do the economic impact reports and understand where we are, but we’ll also look to our blind spots.”
The Stronach Group, which owns the Preakness despite having sold Pimlico to the state last year, will still operate the race and accompanying onsite entertainment in 2025. A spokesperson for the governor said the state and the Canadian company are coordinating to avoid overlap between the Preakness Festival and Stronach’s plans for Black-Eyed Susan Day on May 16 and Preakness Day on May 17.
As of 2027, however, the new Maryland Jockey Club, the nonprofit created by the state to operate its thoroughbred racing industry, will be in charge of the Preakness. At that point, Hasseltine said, Preakness Festival organizers envision their event running from the day after the Derby through Preakness weekend.
The next two years will be test runs for that new approach to presenting the race.
In sharing their vision for a new Preakness, the governor and mayor have said the event must no longer exist apart from the surrounding neighborhoods that host it. Scott has noted that he grew up near the track but never attended the Preakness until 2019.
“For generations, the Preakness has been a defining part of Baltimore’s identity, shining a spotlight on our city’s culture and resilience,” Scott said in a statement. “The Preakness Festival takes that legacy to the next level by focusing on equitable development, job creation, and long-term revitalization. This festival will uplift communities, especially in Northwest Baltimore, while embracing the spirit that makes our city truly special.”
Have a news tip? Contact Childs Walker at daviwalker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6893 and x.com/ChildsWalker.
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