Festivals Futures: A Good Gamble?

“My business has flipped completely,” The Windish Agency’s Tom Windish said. He explained how record labels used to call him up and tell him the start date and end of the tour, whereas now the label will decide when to release an act’s new album based on which festivals Windish has already booked. “The primary source of revenue is festivals and the other shows that we do fill in in between,” Windish said. Sponsorship has also changed.

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Live Nation’s Maureen Ford talked about how more brands are looking for sponsorship in festivals these days and that brands are the ones reaching out.

She noted, “Sponsorship has evolved. It’s not a dirty word like it used to be.” That being said, you’ll often have to lose money to make money in the festival biz. Ford mentioned how the first few years of starting a festival can be hard and that starting a festival someplace like a field in the middle of Michigan “is a tough place to get sponsorship.” The key is being patient and having a way to differentiate your festival. Ford explained that it’s important to have some sort of a hook because there are still some CEOs who only think Coachella when you mention festivals. Charlie Hernandez recommends incorporating social services into your festival to create “an identity for your festival that’s not just about profit.”

As the longtime production manager of the annual Farm Aid charity concert, Hernandez knows a thing or two about giving back. He’s also the founder of Just A Bunch of Roadies, a nonprofit that utilizes the skills of live event professionals to help victims of natural disasters. Ideas range from offering a free medical clinic for the community to partnering with a nonprofit to encourage fans to register for bone marrow donation. “Leave something behind for people to talk about, latch onto and get involved. … You always have to leave something better than you found it. I think a festival is a great catalyst for that kind of change,” Hernandez said.

Kirby brought up a great question – while social services are wonderful, who’s going to pay for it? “Become good partners with the city,” Hernandez said. He got some laughs when he added, “As far as corporations, well, they’re people too, as I’ve heard.” After pointing out that everyone in the room would like to book Lorde, Kirby asked the singer’s agent what goes into his decision to do one festival over another. While timing with the record release comes into play (and, of course, money has a lot to do with it), Windish said one way to get your festival noticed is the food served to the bands.

“One of my favorite festivals is Osheaga,” Windish said. “They knew when they started the festival it would be hard to get people to come to Montreal … so they decided to make the food incredible. It’s like a four star restaurant. I can’t believe how many bands call me up and talk about the food at Osheaga.”

During the panel Kirby led the discussion to the topic of the secondary market – is it a good emerging market for festivals? Founders Entertainment’s Tom Russell noted that because his company is independently owned and financed, it can’t afford to take a huge loss for a five-year growth cycle on a new festival in a secondary market. Instead, Founders Entertainment focuses on the strong base in New York and doing what it does best, like Governors Ball Music Festival and the debut FarmBorough Music Festival.

That being said, Russell noted that we’re seeing a lot more secondary market festivals popping up. Russell brought up the new Eaux Claires festival in Wisconsin as an example of a new cool event, which is curated by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner.

“I still think there’s room for more festivals,” Windish said. “I think the one is Eau Claire is interesting. I think bands launching their own festivals is very interesting. We represent Diplo’s Mad Decent Block Party, which is basically 20 festivals and that popped up in a matter of about three or four years. A very, very big thing. “I still think there are going to be acquisitions. It seems like there have been more acquisitions in the last 12 months then there have been in a long time,” Windish added, bringing up Live Nation’s recent acquisition of C3 Presents as well as recent AEG acquisitions.

“I still think there’s a lot of opportunities, there’s also opportunities to fail and lose lots of money. But I think some people are going to get it right and I’m seeing it happening.”