Bump version number for rc1.
diff --git a/man/meson.1 b/man/meson.1
index 05213a7..eb3fec2 100644
--- a/man/meson.1
+++ b/man/meson.1
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.TH MESON "1" "January 2020" "meson 0.53.0" "User Commands"
+.TH MESON "1" "March 2020" "meson 0.54.0" "User Commands"
 .SH NAME
 meson - a high productivity build system
 .SH DESCRIPTION
diff --git a/mesonbuild/coredata.py b/mesonbuild/coredata.py
index f29f5f0..7038bf7 100644
--- a/mesonbuild/coredata.py
+++ b/mesonbuild/coredata.py
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
 
     OptionDictType = T.Dict[str, 'UserOption[T.Any]']
 
-version = '0.53.999'
+version = '0.54.0.rc1'
 backendlist = ['ninja', 'vs', 'vs2010', 'vs2015', 'vs2017', 'vs2019', 'xcode']
 
 default_yielding = False