PENDLETON — The Pendleton Whisky Music Fest will be back in 2021, but it will look significantly different than anticipated.

A year after event organizers were forced to cancel the concert due to COVID-19, Whisky Fest announced it would come back on July 10, albeit with new headliners. Facing a 12,000-person capacity limit at the Round-Up Grounds, Whisky Fest is postponing previously announced headliners Macklemore and Eric Church to 2022 and bringing in a new slate of musicians. Whisky Fest will announce its new headliners on May 28.

According to Whisky Fest co-founder Andy McAnally, trying to organize a concert as reopening standards shift was a challenge.

“This has been an extremely challenging 15 months from rescheduling the entire line-up from 2020 to 2021 with the intentions of having a full capacity event in 2021,” he wrote in an email. “Switching gears again to a limited capacity event with an entire new line-up of artists is extremely difficult to pull off.”

Macklemore, a rapper, and Church, a country artist, were supposed to perform in 2020 before being moved to the 2021 show. For McAnally and fellow co-founder Doug Corey, the reasoning behind changing the musical acts in 2021 was simple: the capacity limit made Macklemore and Church unaffordable.

After the co-headliners moved to 2022, Whisky Fest is offering ticket holders the option of transferring their tickets to next year or getting a full refund. McAnally wrote that ticket holders cannot transfer their tickets to the 2021 event because the seating and mapping of this year’s concert is too different.

However, existing ticket holders will get the option of buying tickets to the 2021 show a day early, on June 3. The rest of the general public can begin buying tickets on June 4.

The show will also be different in that it will follow COVID-19 guidelines from the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. McAnally outlined some of the measures in his email.

“Social distancing will be in place with limited capacity grandstand seating and extra space in the arena to give patrons an opportunity to social distance,” he wrote. “In addition we will have numerous hand sanitation stations around the facilities. Masks will be available upon entry into the stadium. Also, we have contracted with a national company to clean and sanitize the restrooms, portable restrooms and other high traffic areas throughout the event.”