Governors Ball Music Festival
multi-day music festival held on Randall's Island in New York City
The Governors Ball Music Festival (commonly known as Governors Ball or Gov Ball) is a multi-day music festival held in New York City, United States. Launched in 2011 by Jordan Wolowitz, Tom Russell, Yoni Reisman, the festival features a variety of genres and styles of music, including rock, electronic, hip-hop, indie, Americana, pop, and folk. It is produced by Founders Entertainment, a festival promotion company based in New York City, which also produced The Meadows Music & Arts Festival. Along with the music artists, the festival also features numerous New York-based restaurants and food trucks, as well as activities and games.
The festival is named for its original location, Governors Island, although only the 2011 event was held there. The festival therefore has no affiliation to any official with the title "governor".
History
2011
The inaugural Governors Ball was held on June 18, 2011, at Governors Island in New York City. The one-day festival was headlined by Girl Talk, Pretty Lights, and Empire of the Sun. Governors Ball Music festival 2011 amassed the highest attendance of any event in Governors Island's history, outselling Dave Matthews Band Caravan and Bassnectar's Bass Island in 2011. Reviews for the 2011 festival were positive, with Flavorwire reporting, "As many area festival attempts often fall flat due to poor execution, the Governors Ball was a pleasant exception to the rule, leaving us looking forward to its return next year," and Gothamist reported, "A gorgeous day at Governors Island...everyone seemed to leave sunburned and happy."
2012
Governors Ball 2012, the second iteration of the festival, was held on June 23 and 24 at Randalls Island in New York City.
“Governors Ball Music Festival” enters the record as multi-day music festival held on Randall's Island in New York City. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Governors, Ball and Music can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5589763. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Governors Ball Music Festival” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.