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It’s been just over a week since Dolly Parton died, and the country family is mourning, and will be for quite some time to come. It’s difficult to think of many artists whose loss has rippled quite so far throughout the world. Many in the UK especially felt the loss of Dolly, like they felt the loss of Queen Elizabeth - as though she was a family-member.
Dolly died in Nashville on August 25 at the age of 80 following a brief battle with cancer. Within hours, tributes were coming from pretty much every genre of music, ranging from Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Elton John and Paul McCartney and beyond. Harry Styles, Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile and more added Dolly songs into their own shows.
Back in Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry held a sold out night in her honour with Carly Pearce, Jelly Roll, Molly Tuttle, Kathy Mattea and others. The entire line-up then turned to the screen, to let Dolly close the Opry one last time with ‘I Will Always Love You’. The Empire State Building turned pink. Her music surged by more than 1,000% on Spotify and ‘Jolene’ returned to the UK Top 10. It has felt less like the loss of one country artist and more like a huge piece of American culture disappearing. Which is why what comes next matters so much to country music and everyone her death has touched.
Six days after her death, Team Dolly announced DollyFest: The Celebration of a Lifetime. Two consecutive weekends. Nashville first, London second.
But perhaps the most important thing to know is that this wasn’t an event created after Dolly died. It was Dolly’s idea. Her longtime manager Danny Nozell has revealed that DollyFest was originally being planned as a multi-artist event around her 80th birthday in January 2026, with Dolly herself due to host and perform.
They were much further along than just having an idea too. “We had the venue booked and we had the announcement ready to go,” Danny said, before Dolly’s health problems forced her to step back from the plans in August 2025.
So when Dolly died, her team were left with a fairly difficult question. Do they go ahead? Apparently the answer came down to one question - WWDD. What Would Dolly Do?
As Nozell put it, “DOLLYFEST is WDWD (What Dolly Would Do!).”
Her estate has also been pretty clear that a traditional memorial wasn’t what Dolly wanted. They wanted to allow the immediate tributes to happen naturally, give people time to process, grieve and then bring the festival Dolly had dreamed up to life. Which changes the feel of DollyFest completely.
This isn’t somebody deciding how Dolly Parton should be remembered. It’s honouring and making one of the final dreams she had, come true.
And there is another clue buried much further back which suddenly feels very interesting. Dolly had already talked about bringing DollyFest to London 10 years ago. And if we take that at face value, the venue she talked about was Hyde Park.
In 2016, after the enormous reaction to her now legendary 2014 Glastonbury set, Dolly revealed that preliminary talks had taken place about holding a DollyFest in Hyde Park. The idea sounds remarkably similar to what is being planned now.
At the time she said, “We had been talking about holding it over a few days, having some other artists performing and me topping it off”. Sadly, time ran out for that version of the plan. 10 years later, Team Dolly has announced that one entire DollyFest weekend will take place in London.
Nothing has been confirmed, but surely Hyde Park has to be near the top of the list. So, let’s do a bit of speculative detective work…
The history is already there and the scale works. BST Hyde Park has also become increasingly comfortable with country music, with Garth Brooks headlining a full country day there this summer. Not only that, the attendance was the highest on record at the time for Hyde Park (before Pitbull broke the record again with his headline set a few weeks later). The stage is primed for a country festival.
The O2 Arena is the other obvious option. It has hosted C2C Festival for years and, interestingly, its 2027 calendar currently has a gap from 25th June until on July 5.
So when could DollyFest actually happen?
January would carry the most meaning. That was when Dolly originally wanted to hold the event and January 19th would have been her 81st birthday. But given we are now in September with no dates, venues, artists or tickets available, for a two-city event expected to involve some of the biggest names in music, that starts to feel like quite unlikely, particularly when Dolly’s own team has specifically said they want to give artists and fans time to plan.
March doesn’t feel especially likely either. C2C takes place from March 12 to 14 and already brings a huge amount of the US country industry over to Britain. Running DollyFest around it would potentially mean fighting for the same artists, venues and audience, and competiting with one of the longest standing country events in the UK. So, we’re saying, unlikely.
Summer is where things start getting interesting. CMA Fest takes place in Nashville from 10th June to 13th June 2027. That means hundreds of country artists and an enormous chunk of the industry will already be in Nashville. A DollyFest weekend shortly afterwards makes logistical sense. Then the event has to move to London the following weekend.
One possibility would be Nashville on June 19th and 20th, followed by London on June 26th and 27th. The problem we see with that theory is Glastonbury. It runs from June 23th to 27th in 2027. Although even that creates another interesting opportunity. A huge number of international artists will already be in the UK or Europe.
The other weekend we keep coming back to is Nashville on June 26th and 27th, followed by London on July 3rd and 4th. It avoids a direct London clash with Glastonbury and sits right in the traditional BST Hyde Park period.
It also works well when you start looking at some artist calendars.
Luke Combs currently finishes his announced 2027 dates in San Diego on June 26th, meaning early July is open. Most of the other obvious Nashville names haven’t announced summer 2027 schedules, meaning they're yet to rule themselves in or out.
And then there are the names outside country. Because DollyFest surely isn’t going to be just another country festival, but instead presents a huge opportunity to take country music to an even broader audience than it’s already doing so.
Miley Cyrus feels like one of the most obvious people to watch. Reba McEntire and Lainey Wilson would make complete sense too, while Dolly herself brought Miley, Reba, Lainey and Queen Latifah together for her final version of ‘Light of a Clear Blue Morning’. Shania Twain is another interesting one, particularly because UK dates are already expected from her in 2027 following a successful support of Harry Styles at Wembley. Then there is Carly Pearce, who once worked at Dollywood, before Dolly later surprised her with the invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry.
And that is probably where DollyFest could become something very different. Dolly belonged to country music, but country music was never the limit of her fanbase. The reaction to her death over the last week has proved that.
From the Opry to Buckingham Palace. Nashville to New York. Country singers, pop stars, rock legends, actors, politicians and millions of people who would probably struggle to name more than five other country songs but somehow know every word to ‘Jolene’. She was essentially the female Elvis.
For now, Team Dolly has confirmed only Nashville, London, two days in each city and two consecutive weekends.
No dates.
No venues.
No artists.
No tickets.
Hyde Park is still only our theory, although one with a pretty steady evidence and a remarkable bit of Dolly behind it. And late June or early July currently looks like the most likely gap that fits both Nashville and London calendars - but we'll have to wait and see.
Regardless, Dolly wanted a party. And Nashville and London will guarantee her not one, but two.
