The Killers, Olivia Dean and Jack White to Headline Inaugural Ocean Way Festival in Santa Monica

Santa Monica’s Ocean Way Festival will debut this fall on the city’s beach, with The Killers, Jack White and Olivia Dean announced as headline acts for the Sept. 26-27 event, Billboard reported. The festival is billed as the first major music festival on Santa Monica’s iconic beachfront, marking a new high-profile summer-to-early-fall destination for live music in a densely visited seaside area.

According to Billboard, the lineup is anchored by The Killers, a band that has released multiple chart-topping albums and has continued to headline major outdoor venues. The festival’s second headline slot is assigned to Jack White, whose touring and recording career has spanned multiple decades and projects. Olivia Dean, named among the featured headliners, is listed as part of the festival’s core lineup for the inaugural weekend.

Billboard also characterized the event as the city’s first major music festival on the beach, positioning Ocean Way as a new format for large-scale programming in Santa Monica’s coastal entertainment district. The announcement sets the event apart from smaller seasonal gatherings by focusing attention on two full days of headliner-level performances, rather than a single-headline concert series.

The inaugural nature of Ocean Way matters for local planning and public operations because major beach events generally require coordinated logistics, including crowd management, permitting, and street and shoreline management. For residents and visitors, the weekend timing also falls during a period when the beach typically sees heavy foot traffic, making event scheduling and safety operations a central part of the festival’s execution.

The announcement comes as entertainment promoters continue to compete for dates that can draw broad audiences while balancing neighborhood impacts in coastal cities. Billboard’s report places Ocean Way within that competitive landscape, highlighting that Santa Monica is taking steps to establish a recurring, flagship music festival tied to its beachfront identity.

Details on additional performers beyond the named headliners, venue layout, ticketing tiers, and day-by-day scheduling were not included in the published summary, according to the information provided with the discovery item. Billboard’s coverage identifies the headliners and the event dates, while leaving other operational specifics for later announcements.

For attendees, the Sept. 26-27 window now provides a baseline for planning, but the inaugural status means local policies and festival requirements may still be finalized. As the event approaches, organizers are expected to release further information that typically includes stage locations, entry rules, and any day-of procedures that affect public access to the shoreline.