Festival Bookers Pivot To Combat Cancellations

OF A FEATHER: The Black Crowes headlined last year’s Mempho Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee. This year the festival had to pivot quickly when headliners Queens of the Stone Age pulled out. (Austin Friedline)

Fans, Artists Grapple with Last-Minute Changes

Putting together a music festival lineup is a complicated puzzle. Every booking involves a separate financial agreement, involving multiple parties who all have opinions about who should top the lineup poster, how big and wide the radius clause should be and how much they should get paid for their services.

The bulk of music festival lineups — especially headliners — are booked well in advance, allowing artists and their teams to plot out their time on the road.

That means when the unfortunate circumstance happens and an artist cancels a performance, or a festival gets cut short, fans, artists and management are left in a tough spot with a short window to resolve those issues.

“Between the time we got the news and the time we announced Jack White as the replacement was less than 72 hours,” says Jeff Bransford, producer and director of Mempho Music Festival, which takes place in Memphis, Tennessee, Oct. 4-6 at Radians Amphitheater at Memphis Botanic Garden.

The event, featuring Jack White, Trey Anastasio & Classic Tab, Cody Jinks, Goose, Marcus King, The Roots, among others, was supposed to be headlined by Queens of The Stone Age, but in late August, the band canceled its remaining tour plans while in Europe, due to the health of frontman Josh Homme.

A mid-sized festival losing a headliner less than two months before show time is a scramble and, while Mempho’s genre is loosely defined, it still meant replacing QOTSA with a band in the rock realm.

“We’re happy that Jack White was available and willing to do it,” Bransford said. White, who released a solo album titled No Name in July, announced in August he would embark on an unorthodox concert tour of pop-up gigs, backyard barbecues “and a few festivals.”

“With this tour in support of his new record, the way that he’s releasing his tour dates allows flexibility with his schedule,” said Bransford. “We were obviously disappointed that the Queens won’t be able to perform and obviously wish Josh the best. It happened very quickly. You can imagine the inventory of assets that had to change very quickly, from advertising and ad-mats, that needed to change really quickly.”

As far as securing White, Bransford said there were multiple plans but “really, Jack was our first choice. There were financial considerations and other things we had to work through quickly, but it landed exactly where we wanted it to.”

A solid booking replacement hopefully means fewer disappointed fans requesting their money back.

“We’re a fan-first festival, and obviously we want to honor the folks that specifically wanted to see Queens, so we are honoring refunds for those customers,” said Bransford, who said there had been “very few” refund requests. “It’s been overwhelming positivity that we’re seeing on socials right now in terms of Jack.”

Bransford said White’s experience playing Mempho in 2019 was a factor for securing the booking.

“We’re excited about the festival, this being its seventh year,” he said. “It’s a wonderful, diverse lineup and we’re pleased with where we are ticket sales wise right now. This is a notorious late-buying market which can be difficult, but we’ve seen a nice tick up in ticket sales recently and are hopeful that we sell out.”

The festival includes three main stages and a capacity of 22,500.

Mempho’s last-minute (in festival terms) booking follows a few high-profile events this summer that had similar situations, including when Lollapalooza in Chicago and Outside Lands in San Francisco needed to find a quick replacement for headliner Tyler The Creator. Both events pulled off replacements, with hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion playing Lolla and pop star Sabrina Carpenter stepping in at the San Francisco event.

Festivals have more wiggle room when one artist pulls out, but losing a headliner is always a major situation.

Neil Young’s tour with Crazy Horse was cut short when the band announced unspecified illness and canceled its remaining tour plans, which included two festivals — the Eddie Vedder-curated beachside Ohana Festival in Southern California, and Bourbon and Beyond in Louisville, a four-day event with more than 100 artists. The promoters for both events booked Sting as a replacement.

“I was determined to come through with something that was very notable so those who bought tickets were still excited, and generate some new interest,” said Del Williams, global head of talent for Danny Wimmer Presents, which produces Bourbon and Beyond, expected to draw 50,000 people per day, Sept. 19-22.

“I didn’t want to let that be a setback, and it hasn’t been,” Williams said. “The response has been great and we only had a few returns. When you have 50,000-plus tickets and 10 people want refunds, that’s pretty good.”

Williams credited the festival’s reputation and longstanding relationships with agents and managers for being able to make the booking happen with relatively low drama.

“We did consider many options, maybe even having Zach Bryan do a second day, or just moving up Matchbox Twenty, because they’re obviously great artists,” he said. “But I said the opportunity might be there for Sting, so let’s try to make that happen.”

Bourbon and Beyond features Dave Matthews Band, Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Beck and many others at the Highland Festival Grounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

Music festivals, vulnerable to weather, often find themselves in a tough spot between “rain and shine” and being fan-friendly. BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach, California, a locale famously known for moderate weather year-round , was cut short on its third day when wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour made for an unsafe environment behind the scenes and on stage.

With ZZ Top’s set cut a few songs short around 5 p.m., the 10,000 attendees were told to evacuate before learning the event would not resume. Fans hoping to see Trey Anastasio, My Morning Jacket and Fleet Foxes Sunday night were further disappointed when the winds died down and turned into a beautiful Los Angeles evening.

“I’m born and raised here and I’ve never seen the wind come up so fast like that,” said Allen Sanford, partner and producer of the three-day event that takes place in May.

The festival’s evacuation plan, worked out with the city and local police, stipulated stopping the event if winds topped 50 miles per hour, which a security drone was monitoring during the event. During the set, line array speaker cabinets swayed in the wind along with Billy Gibbons’ trademark beard — as he joked onstage “can someone turn down the fan?”

“It became apparent fast,” said Sanford. “Not only were winds exceeding the maximum, but I was starting to see loose structures and, with so many kids there, too, it was the (prudent) decision to make. That next day, waking up for me could have been really different. I’m in this business to show people a good time. I’m in this business to create memories. I don’t know how I would have dealt with being responsible for hurting somebody.”

Fans had a mixed reaction to the evacuation, with some littering social media with complaints after the wind died down, and claiming that the festival was fleecing fans by cutting things short. The rest of the event went on as planned without incident, with capacity crowds to see Sting, Seal, Devo, Incubus and Dirty Heads.

“The amazing part is, having to evacuate 10,000 people, we did it in 22 minutes,” Sanford said. “I would have never dreamed we would have ever had to evacuate.”

A few weeks later, festival officials announced they would be offer refunds to those who attended Sunday, with the option of obtaining a discount for next year’s event. Sanford says negotiations with the festival’s  insurance provider are still taking place, and he makes no bones about the financial impact of the shortened day compounded with offering refunds.

“You never do an ethical thing for business reasons, you do an ethical thing because it’s the right thing to do,” said Sanford, adding that more than 50% of attendees to Sunday requested refunds. “This year was our year to say, OK, even though we were clear on the website that there’s no refunds, even though we offered you insurance up front, we understand that you might have missed that. I’m hoping that the community takes notice and that the industry takes notice in general, and this becomes kind of protocol.”

Sanford says the response has been positive and he hopes to see the refund offering as an investment in goodwill with fans committing to attending future events. The festival started in 2019 and didn’t happen in 2020 due to COVID. He scoffs at some social media comments that the festival would prefer to end early, and says he mostly feels sympathy for staff that had to deal with rude comments and customers.

“The community supported us there,” he said. “There were a lot of refunds. Social media has become a place to complain, but people were very appreciative. We refunded everybody. We still haven’t been paid by (our) insurance. They’re still trying to negotiate with us, which is disheartening, but we’re getting through it.”

Coming from the restaurant business and having other ventures apart from BeachLife festival, Sanford acknowledges he’s fortunate to weather the financial blow of offering refunds. However, he says that those who can’t shouldn’t be putting on events in the first place.

“It shows that we’re in this for the long haul,” he said. “When we started this business, we weren’t gambling and we properly funded the business, and we’re pretty fiscally conservative people. It hurts; it wipes out a year’s worth of work. We’ve taken some time to rebound. We’re booking for 2025 and we’re in a nice place to have a successful year. Statistically, we should never have a high wind event again, knock on wood. But you never know.”