Minnesota Yacht Club organizers have an early Christmas present for Twin Cities music lovers: They will be unwrapping their 2026 lineup on Tuesday, more than a month earlier than they announced artists in the two previous years of the big rock festival on St. Paul’s Harriet Island.
“Any guesses who will be joining us in 2026?” MYC’s social media accounts asked in alerts posted Monday afternoon.
The announcement is expected at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and it will be another long one. Organizers opted to keep running Minnesota Yacht Club as a three-day festival after adding an extra day with sold-out results in 2025, only the event’s second year. The 2026 dates already have been announced as July 17-19.
Organized by C3 Presents — a Texas-founded concert company known for putting on the popular Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza festivals — Minnesota Yacht Club consistently drew about 35,000 fans each day to Harriet Island Regional Park in its first two years. Its previous lineups included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani in its inaugural run, and Green Day, Hozier and Fall Out Boy last year.
There’s reason to believe the festival will face stiffer competition in its third year, though, as the outdoor concert season in and around the Twin Cities looks to be busier than ever. Live Nation (which co-owns C3) is opening the 19,000-person Mystic Lake Amphitheater next summer with concerts already announced by Guns N’ Roses, Train, Iron Maiden and (new this week) Goo Goo Dolls and Toto with Christopher Cross. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame also is expected to bring back his trendsetting Eaux Claires festival in 2026 in his hometown of Eau Claire, Wis., 90 minutes from St. Paul.
What’s more, C3 itself is reportedly planning another, albeit very different, festival in St. Paul next year to run the weekend before Minnesota Yacht Club: A country music festival dubbed the Minnesota Country Club. The two festivals would share a lot of the same stage gear and production expenses. Details of the Country Club event are still tentative and under wraps, however.
So what are the popular guesses for Yacht Club’s 2026 lineup? Social media users threw out names such as Smashing Pumpkins, the Strokes, Lorde, Turnstile, Blink-182, Wet Leg and Hozier — the latter suggestion something of a joke, since the Irish rocker had to cut short his set last summer because of a thunderstorm.
Other logical guesses include ex-Minnesota rock legend Bob Mould’s reunited trio Sugar, Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Kings of Leon, Pink, Linkin Park and Mumford & Sons. But these really are just guesses. At least fans won’t have to keep guessing until late January, like in previous years.
