The Festival Market: What Is And What Should Never Be (And What Lies Ahead)

Michael Hickey/Getty Images – Lolla Chicago 2018
Lollapalooza continues to increase amenities with a GA+ ticket package that includes more shade, air-conditioned restrooms and more.

The North American festival market has exploded and transformed over the last couple decades, going from a handful of mammoth, European-esque camping festivals in giant fields to now encompassing seemingly any kind of event, offering everything from VIP surfing lessons with artists at Kaaboo Del Mar to all-night “sleep concerts” at Noise Pop in San Francisco. 

Meanwhile, the largest and most established of the major North American major festivals such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza continue to thrive. Not content to rest on their laurels, they continue to improve and surpass already-high expectations as fans have seemingly infinite – and infinitely targeted – events to choose from.

“I always try and stick with the core roots of the festival and stay true to the brand of ‘Austin City Limits’ the television show, and make sure we’re representing enough diversity in music and genres specifically, so that there’s something for everybody. That kind of starts at the top and then we work our way down,” C3 Presents’ Amy Corbin, who leads talent buying for the mammoth Austin City Limits Music Festival among others, told Pollstar of putting together a lineup with up to 150 artists over two weekends.

Improvements at ACL fest include adding a stage across the street last year, “which really opened the trees and took a lot of the pressure off the main park, allowing people to move around more easily” and this year there is a new VIP platform with a viewing deck. “We’re listening to the fans and what they would like to see more of – shade, more water and production value. Every year we improve,” Corbin said. 

It doesn’t hurt that this year’s ACL festival lineup included artists like Paul McCartney, Metallica and Travis Scott, of course.

Lollapalooza’s flagship Chicago event, also produced by C3 Presents, boasts recent improvements and amenities including cocktail lounges and a GA+ ticket package with more shade, seating, air-conditioned restrooms, complimentary water and beer/wine discounts.

Likewise, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, somehow almost 20 years old now, added the Campground Plazas, with chef Tim Love, Cage The Elephant’s Matt Schulz and others creating festival activations throughout the campgrounds. “These programs really were like a festival within the festival and we’re looking to do even more of this for Bonnaroo 2019,” AC Entertainment’s Ashley Capps told Pollstar.

Rick Kern / WireImage – ACL 2017
Austin City Limits Music Festival continues to raise the bar with top talent and improved fan amenities.

Meanwhile, younger, still-growing events need to find a way into the already crowded market, faced with the challenge of having a clear purpose right from the start in a notoriously unforgiving market where it’s expected that an event won’t make any money for the first few years of its existence – if it even survives that long.

Columbus-based Prime Social Group has become a festival network of sorts, with just under 20 different events throughout the United States in many underserved markets. 

Part of its strategy is to create a tour of sorts and offer package deals when making offers – rather than flying artists in and trying to schedule around one date, agents can work multiple Prime events into the routing.

“What we’re seeing is that mixed regional festivals seem to be working,” Prime Social Group managing partner Zach Ruben told Pollstar. 

“You can go in with a much smaller budget with a 10-15K person model per day. There are so many festivals and kids are presented with so many live music opportunities between tours and festivals. Every weekend at all times of the year there’s something to engage in.”

The proliferation and success of many new events can create copycats that may not know what they’re getting themselves into, however.

“The biggest challenge facing the festival scene in my opinion is that ‘putting on a festival’ became the cool thing to do and frankly too many people were doing it without any thought as to why,” said Madison Entertainment’s Roger LeBlanc, talent buyer for the Kaaboo festivals, Mempho Music Festival and others. 

“That happens in every industry when a product starts to get popular. What we are seeing now is that those that are unique and can attract and retain customers will survive and those that can’t won’t.  … This is a natural phenomenon in business and in the end will ultimately be a good thing for all of us.”

Even with good execution and a clear vision comes the problem of market saturation, with cities like Chicago having multiple major events like Lollapalooza, Riot Fest, Pitchfork and North Coast Music Festival – among even many others.

Coalition Entertainment’s Pete Gross, talent buyer for events including Imagine Festival in Atlanta and the new Waterloo Music Festival in Austin, Texas, says there are still many markets developing in the U.S. that could sustain major events.

“What’s interesting to me is seeing where new festivals continue to pop up – a new one popped up in Chattanooga this year. Cities like Louisville or Lexington, Kentucky, as the population continues to grow, some of these cities will be able to sustain new events. 

“To me, the festival landscape has gone from being a Bonnaroo or a Wakarusa, All Good destination experience, to now having the opportunity to see any type of festival 

even in a secondary or tertiary market. “

To that end, it’s no surprise some of the new artist-curated festivals are debuting in less-traveled markets – such as J. Cole’s Dreamville festival in Raleigh, N.C.; X Ambassadors’ Cayuga Sound in Ithaca, N.Y.; and Cody Jinks’ Loud And Heavy in Fort Worth, Texas. They’re all hometown events, but the locations may be telling.

“I like the artist-curated festivals, I think that’s smart,” said Paradigm’s Matt Galle, who represents or co-reps artists including Shawn Mendes, Halsey, Gucci Mane, Why Don’t We and many others. “Bon Iver has his, The National are involved in Boston Calling, Tyler The Creator has his Flog Gnaw (Carnival) in L.A. Fans want to buy into that artist brand that much more and know what they’re listening to and curating. And it allows artists to not have to rely so much on touring, touring, touring to bring in their revenue. They can sit back and work on the festival and do bigger plays once, twice a year, and can own their brand and take a year off and let someone else headline it, and benefit from that.

“I think it’s smart, but it’s gotta be the right situation and also the right place that has room for that festival. You can’t go into somewhere that already has two or three festivals. Unless you’re a super huge artist it’s going to be tough because everyone’s going to pull from each other.”