Lollapalooza Is Upon Us: Q’s With Charles Attal, C3 Presents And C3 Management

With so much on his plate, including the launch of Lollapalooza today, Attal was gracious enough to check in with Pollstar to talk about what’s new, the secret to how his company avoids getting “old” and potential markets for more Lollas.

We’re always looking to expand and improve what we do. We’ve added cocktail lounges, with our special GA+ ticket package. They include more shade, more seating, air-conditioned restrooms, complimentary water, soft drinks, discounts on beer/wine. We’ve got food for purchase, games, a chill lounge area. 

There will be a professional ping pong tournament. It’s not sanctioned but there are pro players coming and fans can actually play for prizes. It’s pretty cool. 

And we’re always enhancing the artists’ experience, how to get in and out. We’re just trying to have best practices in the country and the world. 

We do surveys online and people were asking for something. They didn’t want a full VIP ticket but they wanted a little something extra. Just more shade, more relaxing area. If you’re coming all day, you have to hang and chill. Sometimes you want to be a little more off the beaten path. 

Oh, we’ve got a lot of them. I can tell you the ones I’m going to (laughs). Jack White at the Metro / Smart Bar, Dua Lipa at the Vic Theatre. Greta Van Fleet is gonna be awesome at the Vic. The National at the Metro / Smart Bar. Carly Rae Jepsen will be cool. Vampire Weekend at the Metro. The Metro is stacked deep. 

Activating the city is our No. 1 goal. We do as many shows as we can. A lot of bands can’t play aftershows, some have to leave town, but if we could do aftershows with every band we would. 

Joe Shanahan [the founder and owner of Metro / Smart Bar in Chicago] really helped us develop relationships with the clubs and the theatres. He’s been a great supporter of us over the years and he’s been a good voice locally to help us out. We lean on him heavily to tell us where to go, what to do. And it’s worked out. 

It’s a little early to go to bed at 10, right? Well maybe not for me, but for some of the kids. (Laughs) 10 p.m. on a Friday night people are just getting ready to go out. 

Photo Courtesy of C3 Presents – Charles Attal

We don’t want to live and die by one show. Some shows will be soft one year, some will be super strong. We want to be able to continue to diversify.  

[But] we grow organically, we don’t ever force feed anything, anywhere. The growth of Lolla has all been organic growth, in finding great partners and great sites in different cities around the world. 

We won’t do two Lollas in one country. We do one per country, and it takes years to come up with a site. 

We’re super excited about Stockholm coming online, all the South America shows are doing very well, they’ve been selling out. The brand is healthy. 

Every country is different as well. There’s always going to be a regional, local and national flair to each festival. There’s no cookie cutter going on anywhere, because you can’t do the same types of activations, food, music or art, because every country is different. That’s the beauty of Lollapalooza, we’re able to come in and create something different in every market.

Exactly. Buenos Aires is totally different from Chile, Brazil. And they are totally different sizes. I think Chile has the best kid’s activation that we have, at [their] Kidzapalooza. That’s a place anybody would go hang.

And we learn from all our partners around the world. We try to have best practices and they do too. We’ll see something really cool in one country and we’ll think, “Wow, we should try to go do that somewhere else.” 

Even international bands. Sebastian from Chile will call me and say, “Hey, I have this really cool South American band, you want to put it on Lolla Chicago?” Sure enough, you put it on and people come out of the woodwork for it.

It’s not always perfect, we have heated disagreements that are very productive, but at the end of the day we are all one big family and it works out well.

I’m not personally, but that doesn’t mean that my partners aren’t looking. We are always looking for sites, so yes, we are looking [in those markets]. We haven’t found the ideal situation just yet, but we would love to go to East Asia.

Live is where [the artists] are making their money. It’s not like the old days, so they have to find new markets or sit out six months in a year.

In South America the Lollas are able to help break artists. Even big artists that aren’t as [popular] down there are willing to play Lolla. It’s a great soft ticket for them. They don’t have to worry about filling up the clubs, they can get in front of a built-in audience and show their talent, and then they can come back and do a hard ticket on their own. 

That’s been the model for a lot of bands, which is great for us. We love it. 

I’m very close with a lot of the European promoters, the South American promoters, the Australian promoters. I get on a weekly call with Andre Lieberberg, Melvin Benn, Denis Desmond, John Reid, Kelly Chappel, Anna Sjolund, people around the world who I respect and love working with. … We talk about what artists are working in what parts of the world, and what’s bubbling to the top. 

We are lucky to be in Austin, next door to the University of Texas, which is a great university. We have a great intern program and thousands of resumes. 

When you’re out of college, if you don’t want to leave Austin, a great place to work is C3. You can travel, you can work in different cities, you can cut your teeth in production, creative, marketing, sponsorships or booking. There’s a lot of departments.

We’re lucky to have that pipeline and we train kids for a few years before they are working on a major project. 

We hire a lot of people out of that program. We teach them the way we like to do it, and they’re not jaded from working in other markets. They come with ideas and we are always looking for new ideas. 

We never shut the door on new talent and new ideas because you know what, I’m 50 (laughs), so my ideas may get a little tired sometimes. We need revamp on our festivals and our events, we need fresh eyeballs on it and that’s the key to our company.

I mean, we’ve never had Paul McCartney or Metallica on this show. That’s our wheelhouse. Having Metallica on a Saturday night in the park is going to be epic. We’re super excited about that. 

The city embraces this festival. It’s been here for a long time [since 2002], it’s one of the older festivals in the U.S. It’s part of the DNA of the city, its special, and we look forward to it every year.