Boulevardia takes a new form for 10th year in KC: ‘It feels comfortable’
For the fourth time in its 10-year history, music festival Boulevardia took over Crown Center. The 2025 edition, held on Saturday, June 14, was unlike the others, as it showcased 40 musicians and DJs from the Kansas City region across five stages for one night only.
It’s a sharp change from the multiple-day festivals fans were used to when the first Boulevardia landed in the West Bottoms in 2014. The festival also opted to book local performers only for its 10th anniversary to highlight the best of Kansas City.
Keli O’Neill Wenzel, executive producer for Boulevardia, said previously that the city has such a rich, diverse pool of talent, and the festival is a great platform to put those artists in front of larger crowds, including people who may be discovering them for the first time.
Did this change dampen the mood at Boulevardia, or was it the party that visitors are all too familiar with? Here’s what went down Saturday.
Anniversaries
Boulevardia wasn’t the only one celebrating an anniversary.
Vinnie Lewis and Latitia Murray are both from the Kansas City area and have made it a tradition to attend the music festival since they became a couple on Juneteenth in 2022. They met through a dating app and are now celebrating their engagement — the ceremony is set for Juneteenth 2027, five years after their fateful encounter.
The good vibes and discovering new artists are what keep them coming back to Boulevardia to celebrate around their anniversary date. Murray mentioned that she had never heard of New Orleans hip-hop artist Big Freedia until 2024, when they played at the festival
“It’s just always fun,” Lewis said. “We like coming out to a lot of the vendors. They always give us nice free things and it’s always nice to buy a few things, too.”
“I would say the community of it, like the togetherness,” Murray said. “It feels comfortable.”
The focus on the local music scene and artists like The Phantastics, Kat King, Katy Guillen and The Drive, or Jamogi and the Jammers didn’t push them away from attending, even though Lewis said the discourse he saw online showed that people were not happy with the artists, having been used to national-known acts like Dashboard Confessional, Thundercat, or Fitz and The Tantrums headlining the shows.
They’re open to discovering new acts, like TheBabeGabe at the Holladay Hill stage at 9 p.m. They were spotted sitting together, enjoying the performance under the stars.
The King, The Clown and The G
The headliner for Boulevardia 2025 was Tech N9ne, Kansas City’s most successful hip-hop artist. The co-founder of local record label Strange Music is no stranger to the Boulevardia stage, last performing at the festival in 2018 as one of the headliners.
Indie band The Greeting Committee and hip-hop artists honestav were also headlining acts on the main stage, but it was clear who drew the most fans to Crown Center. Many kids and adults throughout the crowd were spotted wearing Strange Music merchandise, whether it was a shirts featuring Tech N9ne or other artists signed to the label or hats with the label’s iconic snake and bat logo.
Tech N9ne has built a loyal following over his 25-year career. Boulevardia chose to honor him by bringing back his collaboration with Boulevard Brewing Co., the Bou Lou, a beverage made with wheat beer, pineapple and coconut based around the artist’s 2006 song “Caribou Lou.”
Those same fans wearing his merch were also seen carrying multiple cans of the limited-time beer, like Robby Dyke and Avery Hufft, who traveled from Tulsa, Oklahoma, just to see Tech N9ne perform.
Saturday’s show marked Dyke’s 35th time seeing Tech N9ne live and Hufft’s fourth. Dyke said he first heard Tech N9ne’s music when he was 15 years old and immediately knew he had to hear it live. Every time the artist travels to Tulsa, he makes sure he doesn’t miss it.
“He’s going to blow this place out of the water because that’s what he does,” Dyke said.
A huge group of fans headed from one end of Grand Boulevard to the other to get a good spot to watch the artist known as The King, The Clown, The G, after indie rock band Hembree concluded their set on the Elevate stage in front of the Crown Center fountains.
Tech N9ne took the stage at 9:30 p.m. and had a sea of fans in the palm of his hands, playing some of the crowd’s favorites like “The Beast,” “Einstein Tech N9ne” “Riot Maker,” and “Straight Out The Gate.”
The future of Boulevardia?
What does Boulevardia look like in 2026 and beyond? Officials didn’t answer why the music festival shifted to one day and with the FIFA World Cup coming to Kansas City in less than a year, the fan festivities are likely to overlap with the Father’s Day weekend tradition.
There is also the potential factor of the Kansas City Royals building a downtown stadium. Mario Vasquez, the new city manager, shared his suggestions on where the Royals should build their new ballpark should Missouri legislators approve a stadium incentive plan to help make it possible (it was signed into law Saturday, June 14).
“My personal preference, of course, is for downtown – for baseball to go to the Washington Square Park site, which I think is well-suited for it,” Vasquez said.
Washington Square Park happens to be where the Maker’s Market and the Illicit stage are located at Boulevardia. Tyler Tobin of Kansas City believes both the music festival and the stadium can coexist, and fans won’t have to miss out on Silent Disco or drag shows entertaining them in the center of the city.
“There’s a lot of room down here,” Tobin said. “We have a lot of vacant buildings.”
The festival hasn’t yet announced plans for 2026.
This story was originally published June 15, 2025 at 1:45 AM.
