Lowdown on summer music fests
The thrill is largely gone. News & Views,
“Music festival season?”
For fans in 2019, what once was a summer run of several marquee music events has over the past decade expanded into a full-year push, from such festivals as Coachella and Bonnaroo unveiling their lineups in January through the glut of summer music festivals and into music events that have sprung up in warmer climates in the fall and winter. Now, it’s possible for concertgoers to somehow engage every month of the year with what were once branded “summer” music festivals.
This month saw the rollout of the Lollapalooza and Woodstock 50 lineups, and despite their drastically different locations, the tops of their lineups didn’t look much different from Coachella, Governors Ball, Boston Calling, Bonnaroo and the rest of America’s biggest festivals.
The best advice for fans clamoring to get tickets? Save your money, considering music festivals have turned into a homogenized gimmick for big businesses that barely allow concertgoers the serendipity of discovering new acts.
Festival culture is here to stay. Nielsen Music estimates that 23 percent of the U.S. population attended a music festival in 2018, up from 18 percent in 2017, the biggest year-over-year growth of any kind of live music event.
But, save for the music fest superfans or VIP attendees looking to splurge on a special weekend whatever the cost, America’s biggest music festivals have only become less attractive for the average fan to attend because of the oftenprohibitive costs and the homogenization of many fests’ lineups.
A majority of the country’s biggest fests cost nearly $100 a day for passes alone. Factor in travel – flights, hotels, shuttles, parking and camping passes and other transportation and lodging costs, as well as any food, drinks or merchandise – and the price of attending these festivals can run into the thousands of dollars. Money magazine priced a 2018 Coachella trip for a “typical traveler” at more than $2,300 a perere” son. With Nielsen estimating that frequent live-music attendees in 2018 spent an average of $247 a year on tickets, that doesn’t come close to covering a three-day pass for many fests.
And all that money spent for what? It has become increasingly common to see a mix of the same 15 to 20 names headlining nearly every one of America’s biggest festivals, and even a quick peek at this year’s lineups reveals the same trend. Childish Gambino is headlining
America’s biggest music festivals have only become less attractive for the average fan to attend, from the often-prohibitive costs to the homogenization of many fests’ lineups.
the trifecta of Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, with other artists falling in the middle of the festivals’ Venn Diagrams, including Ariana Grande (Coachella and Lollapalooza), The Strokes (Governors Ball and Lollapalooza), Tame Impala (Coachella, Lollapalooza and Boston Calling), The Lumineers (Bonnaroo and Woodstock 50), The Killers (Forecastle and Woodstock 50), Lil Wayne (Governors Ball and Lollapalooza) and Twenty One Pilots (Boston Calling and Lollapalooza).
Yes, there are functional benefits to many of the big festivals booking the same few headliners – mainly, that fans can see marquee names at whatever event is closest to them instead of, say, flying across the country to see Beyonce at Coachella in 2018, because that was the only festival she played. Plus, there are hundreds of non-headlining acts that can provide the music discovery that many fans seek out.
And yet, the homogenization of music festivals has stripped the character
from the summer’s largest events. Instead of once-in-a-lifetime booking choices at these fetes, such as 2012’s surprise Tupac hologram at Coachella or Beyonce’s groundbreaking set last year, the lineups look more similar than ever. Seeing a Childish Gambino against the Chicago skyline or in a dusty Tennessee field at Bonnaroo likely will be exactly the same, save for a different backdrop for fans’ Instagram photos.
The solution is to go smaller and seek out festivals centered on a genre, community or theme. Many musicians have begun curating their festivals, including Wilco’s Solid Sound in Massachusetts, Pharrell’s Something in the Water in Virginia and the Roots’ eponymous Picnic in Philadelphia.
With the number of festival options that are more affordable, diversely programmed and accessible to more fans around America, it has never been a better time to seek out a new festival to attend– and to skip shelling out for the same old behemoths.