Seattle's annual Labor Day arts festival Bumbershoot is moving its Mainstage from KeyArena to Memorial Stadium. Key had served that function for the last three years. Memorial Stadium's comeback comes with a new configuration. The press release elaborates:

The new layout — with the primary stage located on the north side of the field rather than the western end zone — is planned to allow for the venue to be open all day (e.g. no forced entry and exit times, except after the final act of the day) with minimal lines to enter, as well as provide better sight lines and increased safety. The venue will remain open continuously throughout each day of the Festival to allow attendees to “come whenever” and “leave whenever” and spend more time seeing their favorite acts in whichever venues they’d like. Additionally, a smaller, secondary stage will debut in the southwest corner that will be activated in between the Mainstage headliners.

These seem like positive changes. To this Bumbershoot attendee, Memorial Stadium always felt like a more fun place to see live music than Key, and one less fettered by a security presence, although sound quality at Memorial sometimes left something to be desired.

In addition to this change, Bumbershoot has enlisted Long Winters frontman John Roderick to moderate a panel titled “Why Selfies? Why Introverts? Why Now?” at Town Hall on Wednesday, April 16. Roderick will also announce the first round of the festival’s non-music-oriented programming. Then on May 8 at Neumos, Bumbershoot's 2014 music lineup will be revealed at a 21+ event hosted by Jeopardy champion and author Ken Jennings, which includes live performances by Pickwick and Naomi Wachira.

You can purchase 3-day Bumbershoot passes here. Prices increase after the May 8 music announcement. Single-day tickets will be available at that time.