The Voodoo Music Experience moved to Memphis

Displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the festival will take place Oct. 29-30 in Tom Lee Park and is being recast as a hurricane benefit. The event will raise money for the New Orleans Restoration Fund.

“Moving a festival of this magnitude has been no easy task and we are grateful to the City of Memphis,” festival founder and producer Stephen Rehage said in a released statement. The festival generally draws tens of thousands of people.

Performances from the festival will be broadcast by VH1 on Nov. 5.

Festival organizers — which had also looked at the city of Austin, Texas, to hold the outdoor event — considered a number of locales in Memphis, including Tom Lee Park, Mud Island and other parts of downtown Memphis, according to Memphis music officials.

The lineup originally included Nine Inch Nails, the Foo Fighters and the hometown favorites, The Neville Brothers.

Nine Inch Nails is the only group that’s officially signed on to perform at the new location, but other acts are expected to be announced soon.

Nine Inch Nails’ leader Trent Reznor is a former New Orleans resident. In a recent statement posted on the festival Web site, Reznor said: “It’s great that other cities have opened their doors to this year’s event, and the New Orleans spirit will definitely remain in the air — that’s something the floods cannot wash away.”