The event runs September 23-24 in Los Angeles
Eric Clapton’s 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival will take place September 23-24 at Crypto.com Arena on the L.A. Live campus in downtown Los Angeles. It will be his sixth such festival and is being held in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 1998 founding of the Crossroads Centre Antigua. In addition to the main stage concerts each evening, ticket holders will once again enjoy exclusive daily access to a full outdoor Crossroads Guitar Festival experience featuring some of the best guitarists in the world from across multiple musical genres. This year’s Crossroads Festival Guitar Center Village will be reminiscent of prior festival experiences revered by veteran Crossroads attendees in Dallas, Chicago, and New York, but bigger and better.
The gates to the Crossroads Guitar Center Village will open at 9 am on both days, with live music from 9 am until 3 pm when arena doors open. Festival Village admission will be strictly limited to Crossroads Guitar Festival concert ticket holders on the date of their ticket. Admission will be on a first-come, first-served basis and is not guaranteed based on Village capacity. Ticket holders will be scanned at entrances on both ends of Chick Hearn Court, at Georgia Street and Figueroa Street.
The arena doors will open at 3 pm each day, and promptly at 4 pm, Bill Murray will take the main stage by storm, immediately launching the musical fireworks and artistic collaborations that Crossroads fans have come to expect.
Guitar Center, a long-time supporter of Eric Clapton and the Crossroads Centre Antigua through all five of Eric Clapton’s prior Crossroads Guitar Festivals, is once again sponsoring the Guitar Center Village, welcoming nearly two dozen guitar and gear manufacturers to Exhibitor’s Row on Chick Hearn Court. Village guests will be able to plug in and play the latest guitars, amps, pedals, mics, and specialized audio gear from the world’s best manufacturers, including Fender, Gibson, Martin, Ernie Ball Music Man, Ibanez/Hoshino, PRS/Paul Reed Smith, Shure, BOSS, D’Angelico, Dunlop, Focusrite/Adam Audio, Gamma, Livewire, Mitchell, and Yamaha; along with special exhibitors, Genesis Publications, Guitar Center Lessons, and Heritage Auctions. In addition, Crypto.com Arena sponsors, Coca-Cola and Toyota, will host exhibitions featuring their curated music festival experiences with games and giveaways.
The largest exhibition in the Village will be in the Guitar Center & Legends Collection tent, which will include scores of instruments and extensive selections of gear for guitarists at every skill level and price point, as well as its world-renowned Legends Collection, featuring famous vintage guitars previously owned and played by artists including Eric Clapton (“Blackie” Stratocaster and Cream Gibson 335) and Stevie Ray Vaughan (“Lenny” Stratocaster). In addition, Guitar Center will be displaying and selling instruments from the Crossroads 25th Anniversary Collection of limited edition electric and acoustic guitars from the custom shops of Fender, Martin, and PRS/Paul Reed Smith.
Highlights of past Crossroads Guitar Festivals have been incredible live daytime performances on the Crossroads Village Stage, and the line-up this year is unquestionably the best since the massive Festival experience at Dallas Fair Park in 2004. Up to sixteen Crossroads main stage artists will perform on the Village Stage with their full bands or in unique collaborations with other Crossroads artists, including more than a dozen Village exhibitor signature artists and young, next-gen virtuosos.
Among the main stage artists playing on the Village Stage will be Joe Bonamassa; a new-to-Crossroads bluegrass collaboration by the Del McCoury Band with Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull; and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, along with Turn Up For Recovery Ambassadors Sonny Landreth, The Bros. Landreth, Daniel Santiago, Pedro Martins, Eric Gales, Samantha Fish, Nathan East, and Albert Lee, with other special guests still to be announced.
Additional selected signature artists and gifted players will perform on the Village Stage, most for the first time, including Jake Andrews, Grace Bowers, Cindy Cashdollar, Jesse Cook, Noah East, Jake Eddy, Wyatt Ellis, Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley, Artur Menezes, Nitetrain, The Peterson Brothers, Josh Smith, Hannah Wicklund, and The Zac Schulze Gang. Live music will kick off on the Village Stage each morning with a short performance by winners of the recent Guitar Centers Lessons competition.
The Crossroads Center Antigua tent will be centrally located in the Village, with a full staff available to help individuals and families learn more about the treatment philosophy and programs at the Centre, how to begin the process of addiction recovery, and what to expect along that journey. To serve the local recovery community during the Festival, there will be open AA/NA/Alanon meetings at 11 am on September 23 and 24 in the Auditorium of the Grammy Museum, 800 W. Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles.
In addition, Crossroads’ sister organization Turn Up For Recovery (TUFR) will host a tent in the Village where visitors can learn about its community of artists and musicians who are passionate about changing the conversation around addiction. A number of TUFR Ambassadors who are Crossroads main stage artists will be performing on the Village Stage, including Sonny Landreth and Albert Lee, who will join Cindy Cashdollar in playing and speaking about TUFR. Additional TUFR Ambassadors performing include Jerry Douglas, Pedro Martins, Daniel Santiago, The Bros. Landreth, and three new Ambassadors, Nathan and Noah East, and Eric Gales. The TUFR Ambassadors’ goal is to raise awareness about abstinence-based recovery and to encourage others to host gigs and fundraising events throughout the year that support the Crossroads Centre Antigua.
Following the festival, Heritage Auctions will hold the Crossroads 25th Anniversary Auction of Signed Guitars and Memorabilia to raise additional funds for the charity. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to the Crossroads Centre Antigua, enabling even more people to enter addiction recovery and receive life-saving services.
The auction opens for worldwide bidding on November 13th. All auction items will be exhibited in Heritage’s expanded Park Avenue showroom in New York City from November 20th through December 8th, before returning to Heritage’s global headquarters in Dallas for a live auction on December 8th.
One of the auction highlights is Eric Clapton’s 2019 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster, a one-of-a-kind guitar built by Todd Krause and hand-painted by Brooklyn graffiti artist, John “Crash” Matos. Eric Clapton played this guitar on stage at Crossroads 2019 Dallas in noted collaborations with John Mayer (“Layla”), Peter Frampton (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”), and Eric Clapton’s tribute to Prince (“Purple Rain”), among others.
Other notable auction items include guitars signed by Crossroads main stage artists (past and present), including John Mayer, Sheryl Crow, John McLaughlin, Albert Lee, Steve Vai and many more; a 1962 Marshall Bluesbreakers amp signed by Eric Clapton and John Mayall; handwritten and signed lyrics sheets by Joe Bonamassa and Vince Gill; a one-of-one Gibson “Crossroads” Les Paul, hand-carved by Master Artisan, Rickie Hinrichsen, backstage at Crossroads 2019 in Dallas; four guitars from the Vintage Room at Guitar Center’s Hollywood store, personally selected, played and signed by main stage artists including Gary Clark, Jr.; limited edition vinyl box sets signed by Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, and more; guitars signed by friends of Crossroads including Brian Setzer, Paul Stanley, and more; and, especially curated music and guitar experiences at the Gibson Garage, Fender Museum, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
