Those who feel unfulfilled by the array of music festivals and activities across the UK and Europe in 2025, then perhaps further afield might be of interest?
While there’s plenty on offer across the country and mainland Europe this year, we know for many there’s something romantic about hitting the US roads and touring the many locations not only to discover bits of local music history, but some of the biggest music festivals in the world.
It’s not just Coachella either; but with a glut of locations to travel too across the United States, and only so much time you can get off work, it might help to consolidate to one particular area of the country than attempt to travel from coast to coast.
That’s why Journeyscape have pitched in to look at the 10 must-see US cities when it comes to music in 2025, not solely based on what festivals are nearby either. The team also looked at the number of times the location has been used in songs, giving a little more ‘credence’ to their place in US music history.
The science part
To identify the best destinations for music lovers in the United States and Canada, Journeyscape compiled a list of cities renowned for their music scenes, using sources like Fifty Grande and supplementing it with major cities not featured in those articles.
For each city, they gathered data across five key factors: the number of music venues (sourced from Yelp) and concerts (from Songkick), both normalized per 100,000 people; the frequency of city mentions in song lyrics (via Chosic, using exact match filters); the number of nearby festivals (from Music Festival Wizard); and search interest in each city’s music scene over the past year (from Google Keyword Planner).
These factors were combined into an equally weighted score, calculated separately for U.S. and Canadian cities to determine the top destinations. Population data was sourced from the United States Census Bureau for U.S. cities and from City Population for Canadian metropolitan areas.
9. Austin, Texas
"The Live Music Capital of the World" lives up to its name with 79 concerts and 13 venues per 100,000 people. South by Southwest (SXSW) is just one of 12 festivals that fuel Austin’s thriving music culture. | Canva/SXSW
10. Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville’s 137 concerts and 14 venues per 100,000 people make it a haven for country music fans. With 40,000 lyric mentions and festivals like the CMA Music Festival, it’s no surprise this city is synonymous with music history. | Canva/CMA