Truckstops, Parking Lots & Where TF Is Catering?: 30 Warped Years with Kevin Lyman (Production Live! Keynote Q&A Recap) 

With just a few months to go before the return of Vans Warped Tour, founder Kevin Lyman stopped by Production Live! to share stories from his decades in the live business and offered insight into how the punk rocker with a heart of gold is continuing to bring together music fans and rising artists.

The keynote Q&A was moderated by Ray Waddell, Chief Content Director at Pollstar parent company Oak View Group. Waddell introduced Lyman by noting that he’s one of his oldest friends in the live business, as well as a friend to many in the industry and a mentor.

Lyman added, “People always ask ‘What’s your legacy going to be?’ I can walk into any backstage and see people who got their start on Warped Tour.”

In relaunching Warped Tour for its 30th anniversary, Lyman said it’s not about nostalgia, but rather paying homage to the past while looking forward to the future of community and artist development.

“We’re at a potential inflection right now,” Lyman said, in reference to the need to get young people out to shows. “I really believe it.  And that’s why I came back. I really don’t need to produce another festival in my life. I really don’t. I just want to come back and fuck it up one more time. (laughs)”

His commitment to artist development can be seen in how Warped Tour rolled out the 2025 lineup, with 130 bands announced, one at a time over 30 days. Lyman said, “By the end of the 30 days we had 25 million views on these videos of these bands. The smallest bands that were at the bottom of that poster nearly got 130,000 views. Their social media numbers went up 20 to 60% immediately. Everything we’re doing now leading up to the summer is to promote these bands.

Here’s a sample of some of the words of wisdom Lyman shared during the Q&A: 

THE GOLDEN RULE: 
I treated all bands the same – that’s always been my motto. Treat everyone with respect, treat everyone the same. To me there are no rockstars – We do what we do, some people get larger than others. 

IMPORTANCE OF STAYING GROUNDED:
Coming into L.A. in the ’70s and ’80s was a pretty wild time but I kept myself grounded by driving an hour [to work]. I try to teach my students at USC, where I teach, try to keep your life grounded. I always had to go an hour home to reset [my] life so you didn’t get sucked into some of the pitfalls of our careers. 

HAVING FUN WITH CORPORATE AMERICA  
I grew up in “Fuck corporate America,” skateboarding and everybody was pissed off at corporate America. And I realized we were supporting corporate America whether we wanted to or not, we were buying their clothes; we were driving their cars. So my simple motto was I’m going to go get some of their money and have fun with it to help promote the music that I thought was so important. I thought these bands were saying something, but they didn’t fit on traditional radio, they weren’t getting promoted the same way. If I could pull the resources and maybe make a scene.  

LOTS TO GO AROUND
I always say if I could create a country fair element that came to your community, and then try to leave something behind. … We’d invite local promoters to promote. Riot Fest, I’d give a free table.  People would say, “Aren’t they competition?” I’d say “No, I want to support them, we’re not here all the time.” And I still feel that way. The whole ecosystem, there’s lots to go around – just have to figure out how to be smart about doing it. 

CHALLENGING YOUR AUDIENCE
We did have these obscure bands. I always wanted to throw that hook. I think the audience was getting too complacent. … I think audiences need to be challenged. I want to challenge people in life. When I was doing a movie, I was doing a soundtrack, someone played me a cover by Katy Perry [and then I heard] “You’re So Gay” and I said, “I want her on Warped Tour; that’s the twist I want this summer. She became an amazing life band that summer. She was challenged – I wrote the schedule every morning. That’s what Warped Tour was. Challenge your audience. We’re coming back with Warped Tour this year and it’s a two-day festival and I’m still not telling anyone – the bands know what day they’re playing – but the fans won’t know until the weekend. … They wont know what time the bands are playing until they come into the venue.

THE DNA OF GOING TO SHOWS
If I can get people from age 15 to 19 [going to shows] it gets into their DNA. We’re potentially losing that. The pandemic accelerated it. Kids … they’ve come back into a time where ticket prices are [high], it’s hard to experiment to go to a concert now – it’s a commitment.That’s why [we launched] the Summer School tour, which we just announced last week – we’re trying to bring the [low] ticket price. It’s seven bands, some of my [USC] students work on it, We’re doing 2,000-seaters. We have to get the DNA of going to concerts back into [young people]. 

TRUSTING YOUR GUT
It’s taking risks on brands as much as it was on bands. [Years ago in the early days of MySpace] Tom from MySpace called me and said I want a table at Warped Tour, and i’m like, “Well, it’s 100 bucks.” He said, “Well, I don’t really have 100 bucks.” So I said, “Come out for free.” That turned out to be the only tour that he paid a sponsorship fee. Within 2 years I was producing his Dodger Stadium anniversary show. So take a chance. It’s not going to hurt to give a table to someone. So coming back right now, we’ve shifted now, it’s the TikTok generation. We now have a lot of data behind all this stuff, but its still about that gut feeling.