From Kumbaya To Dorothy Parker: Laurie Kirby’s Takeaways From FestForums 2025

What possibly could Shaun Tomson, a world champion surfer; Matthew Modine, an esteemed actor perhaps best known by a younger generation for his role on “Stranger Things;” Avi Reichental, founder and executive chairman of XponentialWorks, a venture investment, advisory and product development company; and legendary festivaler Kevin Lyman, Warped Tour co-founder turned USC associate professor and founder of The Kevin Lyman Group, have in common? Laurie Kirby’s 2025 FestForums. 

Kirby takes a decidedly expansive and holistic view of festivals writ large to include broad swaths of culture, including music film, food, technology, art as well as wellness, existential matters and, as always, puppies (a FestForums hallmark).  

The Present & Future of Festivals In 2025

“I spend all year thinking about curating this and what makes sense to me and what resonates with me,” Kirby explains in the wake of this year’s confab held Feb. 12-14 at its Santa Barbara  HQ. “I’m just going to impose what I’m seeing on all of you.” 

Which doesn’t mean FestForums won’t wade deep into the festival industry weeds, chewing on topics like the overall state of the festival market, ticket pricing, best (and worst) practices, sponsorships, sustainability, marketing, international, AI, security, F&B and way more. 

Coming off a year where market leader Coachella, an industry bellwether, didn’t sell well, Kirby says there are good reasons why some of the iconic legacy festivals may not be doing as well as they once did.

“These festivals are expensive and kids only have so much money,” she says. “A lot of times, parents are paying for it or they’re paying for it with credit cards. And if you’re not providing them with the right lineup, then they’re not going to show up. You’ve lost touch with your audience.  Festivals are cyclical. So that’s why these smaller niche festivals have become more appealing. You cannot commoditize festivals. These festivals have been around a long time and the audiences have grown up. It’s something you have to consider if your festival is 30-40 years old, people have aged out.” 

Lower sales also increase economic pressures on fests to either raise ticket prices or cut expenditures, of which talent is a major outlay. “They (artist managers and agents) think because we came out of a post-pandemic world and there was such a pent-up demand that those higher fees they were getting were going to be sustainable,” Kirby says. “So, to use a sort of socialistic phraseology, there needs to be a shared risk amongst everyone, everyone needs to take a hit on it. You’ll hear from the agents and the bands, ‘Well, it cost us more to get there,’ but either everyone has to contribute to the solution or there’s going to be more and more festivals that fail because talent makes up a lot of budget for a lot of festivals. I’ve said to many festivals, ‘Nurture upcoming talent, don’t pay the top dollar.’” 

In this economic climate, sponsorship revenues are even more paramount. “Sponsorship plays a huge role in many of these festivals,” Kirby says, “but if you’re a new festival, you just don’t have the eyeballs from major corporate sponsors. I’ve encouraged new festivals to look to their community, community banks and their smaller community partners.” 

The variety of speakers Kirby brings to FestForums (which last year included actress Alicia Silverstone discussing non-dogmatic veganism and the late-great video director legend Marty Callner), perhaps calls to mind no one so much as Dorothy Parker and her famed Algonquin Round Table. 

“Well, thank you,” Kirby enthuses, “Dorothy Parker is who I emulate myself after. I love the idea of The New Yorker Festival, it’s such an interesting festival and that’s one of the ones I’d like to go to. That’s a huge, huge, huge compliment.” 

Tellingly, the word Kirby uses most often during this conversation is “Kumbaya,” a reference to the old campfire song/prayer for healing and peace. And in this day and age of needless polarization and divisive rhetoric,  the sentiment couldn’t be more apropos. 

“FestForums is a place where they can come and commiserate and learn and feel enriched in that sort of kumbaya way that these kinds of things can do,” she says. “That’s kind of what I’m trying to do. Sometimes kumbaya is more needed and necessary than other years. And this year feels like we need kumbaya.”