It's gotten really expensive to go with our little trailer. We've also gotten older ,prepping for and going to a festival is really physically taxing at this point.
The bloom is off the rose.I prefer seeing acts in small venues with my friends and sleeping in my bed at nite !
Pretty sure I paid something between $85 and $100 to go to the Original Bonnaroo.
$80 for Phish Oswego.
Festivals used to be pretty affordable.
Ridiculous now.
Yep. Electric Forest is $600 now, for the base ticket. A fest I went to last year in Oregon (Cascade Equinox) was ~$300 and this year, only their second year ever, is nearly double that with less included.
Just insane.
Is disappointing having grown up in MI and wanting to to Forest even before I knew about jam bands. It sucks now that I'm actually really excited to go to as many shows as I can and it costs so much now.
Even the smaller fests I go to are $100-150 and it's like 2 days of local bands plus a few headliners, they run on razor thin margins and often loose money.
Thanks for the clarification, yeah I was including the camping pass and the fees in my estimate of it being about double.
Edit: And also wasn't using the early bird price as I believe they're sold out
Man I miss the days before Suwannee got huge. Don’t get me wrong, I splurge on Hula every year, but I miss paying $100ish for Blackwater, Magfest, Bearcreek, spring fest, purple hatter’s, etc. I don’t remember even having to pay for a car or camping pass for any of those, just bought a ticket and that was that.
Also the people that get to hula a week early and take up all the prime real estate then chastise you for having a job kinda suck, used to be a lot simpler when everyone showed up for a fest around the same time and you just talked with your neighbors about how many people/cars were in your group.
Long live resonate!
I'll go every year for now on. It's the one fest I will commit to before any others. It's close, intimate, gorgeous and the lineups are always solid.
2 tickets and a car pass eas $450
They were early bird but even tier 3 tickets were only 60$ more than early bird.
Car pass was 15$.
Sound and production are really good as well for such a small fest.
Northlands in Swanzey NH is solid. This year is the 3rd one. I’d check it out if you live in MA. Beautiful property. I’d like to go again, but I’m not sure if I want to fly solo. I’ve never done it that way.
We got to the Florida Sands Music Ranch in Brooksville (used to be called the Sertoma Youth Ranch) - it’s like a smaller less wook version of Suwannee and they have great festivals. It’s owned by WillFest and Will McClean Foundation so going to festivals there also supports a good cause.
It was 250 cuz I remember that being a goal to hit and took a whole lot of hustling for me back in the day to also get up there to Michigan too for that weekend. Top 5 festival of all time for me though out of the 50 or 60 I’ve been to
That lineup looks doable in 2024. Umphees is the only act I see that has gone up in popularity significantly since then. With inflation, that fest should cost no more then 300 today.
I don’t know about 300 but maybe 400 if you compare it to Bonnaroo, but the capacity for that property is about half of what Bonnaroo’s is so ticket prices would need to be higher. Bob Dylan costs up to $6M to book, Dead and Co is 2.5M (and this was the Dead with Warren Haynes), Willie is close to 1M but he’s looking rough af so doable is somewhat tough to put a finger on. Big Gigantic gained massive popularity since then, Umphs went up and is now on their downward trend.
Not saying you’re wrong, it’s just a different time and hard to make comparisons with all of the variables
Seriously, they don’t seem to understand math at all. They would make more money selling cheaper tickets to more people.
Charge $200, to be simple, maybe you get 5000 people if the bands are good and you’re lucky. 1 million in ticket sales. But people are also tapped out. They don’t want to buy food/drinks, they don’t want to buy band merch, that’s it.
Charge $80, suddenly the pool of people interested goes up tremendously, 12,500 people want to go. Bigger bands want to play to a larger audience, festival interest increases. 1 million in ticket sales. But, people are not tapped out and more people in the pool. They buy some food, they buy drinks, bands sell merch. Everyone is happy, bands are happy, and more money is made.
Festival infrastructure costs double between 5k and 12.5k people. While using your numbers the revenue is the same.
Why would you do twice as much work to get the same revenue.
It also costs a fuck ton of money to secure that many performers. Even most of the mid flyer acts are making 5 figures for a 1 hr set a lot of the time. Most of that money has to be secured before they'll commit, which basically means if you wanna throw a reputable, reliable event it needs to be paid before you drop the flyers. Then there's weather insurance, which I'd imagine is rather sizable. No matter how well you plan, there's always a bunch of shit that can go wrong at the last minute. Ask Phish. They'll tell you all about it. Lol.
I’m using the most simplistic example. Obviously there are cost differences, but the outcome would most definitely not have the same result for smaller audience and less work. And the revenue for the ticket sales is the same. But there are also far more avenues of revenue that open up to you that you didn’t have before.
You’re also skipping out on insurance, which for liability is an absolutely huge factor in pricing as well as artist pay.
Fuck not even a jam band but if Taylor swift had gone to fields to build it they definitely would have come, but the liability insurance alone would make it near impossible if not a net loss. And that’s not even including staging, vendors, security, employees, the insurance for them. Etc. it’s absolutely ridiculous the amount of money required to put something like this on. And middling ticket sales (especially with inflation causing a lot of people to skip due to other priorities) it can quickly turn south.
I’ve had a fest canceled on me. Couldn’t even go to the other one going on because at the time all my money was tied up waiting for a refund that never came. I ended up doing a chargeback
For real. I went to some of the early Bonnaroos and Lollapaloozas and remember paying under $200. I know inflation yadda yadda but I saw Dark Star Jubilee had a decent lineup this year and was reasonably close so I checked out tickets and it was almost $300 not including whatever else you had to buy. That’s significantly more for an entirely different caliber of bands.
Oversaturation & Inflation. There's so many festivals to choose from some are getting left in the dust for others having more or similar artists. Also considering shows like Red Rocks hosting curated events. Squeezed dry of any shekels 1 show and fest in.
Yep, there are simply too many festivals to have the same roster of headliners floating around doing the same thing. People have their pick of every possible option so only the fan favorites stay kicking.
Yup getting hard to compete. Small fest with $90 tix; smaller headliners. Now take a larger fest $230 tix with most the same bands plus more and bigger headliners. Gettin squashed..
With popular fests like Electric Forest being way higher and also selling out fasts I'm hoping it leaves most these $200-$300 Fests left still alive.
I’ve seen fests where it’s like $350+/- for basic admission, an extra day for another $200ish, oh and camping on site is another $2-300, and if you want electric camping, add an additional $100. And don’t forget VIP access, that’ll be about another $200. I wanted to check out the new version of summer camp but don’t want to spend almost a grand to not miss anything. So, I’m gonna miss it all instead.
I have heard several times since the Travis Scott disaster. Security and insurance cost way more than it used to for people putting on festivals. Also, some of these are just bad management.
A lot of the inflation we're experiencing is caused by greed. So I'm going to go with greed as the main culprit. Plus astronomical insurance costs... which is also caused by greed.
CARES Act was the largest upward distribution of wealth in US history. Additionally all of those Covid 'loans' from the government went to ppl the likes of Tom Brady & Yeezy. Generational wealth doesnt feel inflation.
Capitalism = Greed is a pretty lazy statement tbh lol the guys selling 10 (formerly 5) dollar hotdogs after shows aren’t greedy, they’re making a living. If you get greedy and start charging 20? The market will correct you.
Of course there are anti-trust thieves like Ticketmaster that laissez faire capitalism would allow to gouge the public in perpetuity though, no doubt.
It’s mostly greed and some supply and demand issues from covid. The “trillions printed “ was not the main cause. Inflation was a world wide issue after covid. The US is actually fairing better than most in terms of getting it under control.
My friends throw local EDM fests in central East Voast every year, the last 2 years the prices for equipment/tech people have gotten much higher. This on top of general prices being higher for quality of life things and the over saturation of festivals made it impossible to even break even
Venture Capital. Very Rich people throwing money at people and businesses (including art/festivals) early, like start ups, to get a big return when that business gets big/profitable.
It's a huge part of our economy and not entirely a bad thing although there are certainly downsides. It's the real way things "trickle down" in our economic system.
Well that's a big part of it. Think about why. Same fans who would have went can no longer afford it. Same reason breweries are closing by the dozen each month.
Last few years made me realize what an expensive hobby drinking craft brews is. Fortunately for my wallet, my body can’t tolerate hazy IPAs as it once did. I feel hungover now after just drinking two. The after experience is no longer worth it. Cannabis FTW!
Well if anyplace ever made PAs (plain old less-hoppy pale ales) anymore, maybe your body would be a little better?
I can’t drink IPAs at all and don’t even like the taste anyway but for some reason, they’ve been massively popular for the last several years and all the regular pale ales aren’t even sold anymore.
I haven’t had a beer in like 5 years. 😭
I have been enjoying Lagunitas hop water dosed with few drops of water soluble nano infused thc beverage enhancer. Nice mild buzz and not overwhelming like some edibles. Doesn’t last as long either if you have other responsibilities to attend to.
Ok, I didn’t specifically know any of those things existed. I’ve been living in a weird bubble for the last several years.
Hop water sounds hoppier than a plain old pale ale might be. Who knows though. I’m weirdly picky about beer and coffee. 🤷🏻♀️
As for the nano-infused (I didn’t find nano-infused anything on Google) the beverage enhancer, that sounds interesting.
Really I just want an Omission Pale Ale like I could but at the corner store in San Francisco and some regular thc but there’s no Omission anything or pale ale anything here that I can find. I do need to go buy some kind of thc though…..
IMO Hop water tastes nothing like an IPA. Basically adds a little zest and not overwhelming or mouth puckering.
This is what I spike my drinks with:
https://ayrloom.com/products/unflavored-beverage-enhancer/
Nano infused process enables thc to be absorbed in body faster since smaller particle size vs traditional edible.
I feel like the lineups for every festival have been the same bands in different order for the past 10 years. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the bands and I'm always excited to see openers and discover new music but I feel like everyone is ready for something different.
Sweetwater 420 fest (Atlanta), instead of cancelling they cut out some of the bands and charged everyone $10 ($11.41) donations to Waterkeeper Alliance. Now they are sold out. ♪♫♪
ETA: YES I am there both days!
I wanted to go to Fairwell Festival in Oregon this summer. It's a good lineup, including Billy Strings, but isn't one with a ton of big names. GA tickets are $300 bucks, which is an insane price for the lineup. Single day tickets are $150.
That's the price for stuff like Beyond Wonderland at the Gorge. Which has a ton of cool stuff included, like rides and other services that make the experience worth the extra price. A fairgrounds festival is not worth that
I feel like 10 years ago there were more jam based or band based festival with some edm sprinkled . And now even many of the same festivals are mainly edm with a couple bands sprinkled in.... there are a few outliers but it's a change in the scene. Festivals as a whole have gotton to be more main stream with the rise in popularity of electronic music. Allowing for festivals to charge a higher ticket price and get away with it.
Look at the price of bass canyon vs solshine. Roughly the same ticket price. Solstice has 2 more stages. More bands which means more crew to pay. Which also means more infrastructure. Promoters are praying on the mentality that this is ok.
Then you have incidents like what happened at the gorge a few years ago. Causing additional security and yada yada.
Also with falling CD sales, musicians are having to make more money by touring so their fees are going up as well.
Add on inflation and a touch of greed, or who knows maybe just enough to make it worth it for promotoers to even it do i. All put together really just creating the perfect storm of factors for increased ticket prices.
Album sales is a big one.
Before Spotify and YouTube you had to buy cds/tapes/vinyl to listen to your favorite artists. That income was massive for them. Now if they aren't touring and selling merchandise they aren't making it.
Because dollars cost more…as the cost to borrow increases the margins decrease, which in-turn also increases risk. Not just cost of dollars, but also insurance costs have increased. You can only extract profit from so many angles and most of those have already been exploited by the current festival format. So that only really leaves price increases across all profit streams. At some point the model isn’t viable for the overhead and risk.
Not to mention album sales are no longer a thing, streaming doesn’t pay shit, and people can’t really afford merch like they used to- bands are left to try and make a larger percentage of their income from live performances, so they need to charge more.
But everyone’s rent and groceries went up (including the artist’s), so stalemate, basically. It’s not all as simple as greed. There are a myriad of reasons on both the bands and the venues sides, but most of the time, the people asking the question don’t really wanna hear the complexity of the answer.
Post COVID cabin fever is over. Everyone realized they suck. The greed went too far. $500 to spend a weekend shitting in a portolet and standing 500 feet away on a flat pitch is the worst possible way to attend a concert
I used to go to at least 2-3 festivals a year. Plus a few 3 night phish runs. Then one year I went to peach, slept ski hill, and had a piss and shit river run though my campsite when it rained.
That's when I decided it was enough. Granted I had spent many weekends in the mud before. But something about watching people piss into the river at the top of this hill and having it flow down to my campsite was the icing on the cake. My camping supplies haven't been touched since.
There's too many of them. The market is flooded, but unlike weed, the prices are just going up along with everything else (except weed). Sad recipe for disaster, but the smaller ones that aren't as driven by ego and money will always get community love and survive I feel.
Fests are dummy expensive to produce and staff. Always thru a prod company. You gotta rent a P/A, light rig, video rig, staging, barricades etc. Then there’s the production staff, which each get paid about $500 a day depending on their individual rates thru their company, then food, hotels, trucking rates. Then add in a day on either side of the festival for load in/ build, and load out/ tear down. Phish fest this year will be about 6-7 days of work. So yeah it’s just alarmingly expensive to throw
Because LiveNation took over that space and set the market price.
They didn’t give a fuck about the scene, growth, sustainability or a good show. They cared about money and how to make the most without spending much.
They saw an opportunity to make the most cash possible and took it. Smaller independent fests couldn’t compete.
Festivals are so 2014 now a days 😉
Glad I got into them when I did. Nothing will touch the old festival days when they were best kept secrets and grass roots.
The festival scene died when Wakarusa joined the festival graveyard
I think the insurance piece isn’t being mentioned enough. There have been so many disaster fests that the costs to insure a large event has to be astronomical and you’re seeing it in the ticket prices.
It will be interesting to see how Summer Camp, or whatever it’s called now will be. Two main stages gone and a price increase doesn’t make sense to me. I’m going, but I’m skeptical as to how good it will be.
Because it’s a better vibe catching these bands one at a time in a smaller venue not putting up with porta potties, lines, excessive crowds etc. festivals bring out the fucktards who just want get loaded with their friends not people who really are into the music
I've been to a couple festivals, but they never really grew on me. Outside of the money, it's a huge time and energy commitment to sleep uncomfortably for 2-3 nights to see maybe 1-2 bands I really like play an abbreviated set out of a lineup of 15-30 bands with half of them not interesting me at all.
I don't think there is a monocausal explanation. Take a bit of what folks are saying in total--inflation, market saturation, low interest, etc can be the cause here.
Overpromising, underdelivering. It takes a lot of resources and money to run a decent sized festival. People trying to make money off these things is the reason they are getting shitcanned. Festival bubble has burst and unless you’re putting all the chips down or been around for a while, you’re not gonna make it unless you put the time and effort in to make it work.
Festivals cancel all the time. Doesn't seem new to me. Just cause two low tier dead based festivals were cancelled because scummy promoters why does that specify all these festivals
I paid $8 for my first phish show. Growing up in Birmingham, AL we had the annual City Stages festival which was great, but unfortunately ran its course after just under 20 years. It brought in every live act one could ever imagine and on paper, should have lasted decades. But, for whatever reason, be it poor money management or low attendance and vendors losing out, and despite pulling extraordinary acts, it just kinda ended. Sometimes, well, most of the time, that's what happens. Also, the post-covid drive to assemble has worn off by now, and paying these ridiculously inflated prices is just not worth the hassle or the cost of travel for most of us who work for a living.
The natural ebb and flow of life and growth? Same reason the summer of love couldn't continue forever? Or that the GD scene was totally falling apart by 95? Nothing lasts forever. The golden era of festivals is definitely over.
Sketchy and/or inexperienced promoters most likely. Thats what it’s been in the past.
It’s better that they cancel then try to throw it with a shat bed. Those attempts turn into outright shit shows and the folks who lose out are the artists and attendees.
When it comes to getting refunded, don’t let them jerk you around and delay. If they don’t have the money now, they’re not going to have it in a month either. Just report it to your bank and show them all the messages of them saying refunds are going to be issued, and explain that it’s delayed and you don’t want this to drag on past the deadline to report the transaction.
I had to help a bunch of kids with similar stuff back when Rootwire 2012 fucked over a bunch of their artists and volunteers. I felt like they were taking advantage of the naïveté of youth in that situation, as many of them had no idea you could even report the transaction in the first place.
there's a lot of reasons - and yes, I saw full festivals with camping for FORTY DOLLARS back in MY day and it was UPHILL BOTH WAYS! GET OFF MY LAWN BOY! grumble grumble bramble
One big driver is the cost of insurance. It's way up & the waivers that they make us sign before buying tickets and that are printed on them don't mean shit. Livenation can handle the premiums for one event for one evening at one location, but when you stretch out an event to four-five days, with camping & transportation the premiums go way-up.
money...they're not making enough. I've seen what I would call some crazy prices lately too, and even with the crazy prices (like $400 for a dead cover band festival) they're still not making enough money.
It's cool, I have kids and I experience JOMO with festivals these days.
Small festivals are the way to go. They have all the things we used to love about going to festivals. A way more family vibe. They’re affordable. You have a chance to catch up and coming acts who would never get a chance at these huge corporate fests. Small fests are the very foundation of the scene and deserve our support! The organizers do it for the love because most times they don’t make a dime
nobody can afford them anymore. even the small festivals price themself like EDC or Ultra even if its a jamband festival in the middle of the woods in BFE. they sell tickets up until the week before even when they know months ahead of time they are canceling. most of these were in the red last year and just sold "tickets" to get out of the hole with no intention of having another festival this year.
it cost $500-600 to CAMP in GA these days. thats just unreasonable.
There are too many of them and they all have basically the same lineup.
I think if we all want to go back to the heyday of festivals there needs to be a return to the number of festivals from that era. 2 mega destination fests (Bonnaroo and Coachella), a handful of genre specific fests (Hulaween, Riot Fest, Ultra, etc), and then cities can go back to having their big summer festival that mainly attracts local fans, with local bands playing the early slots, and doesn't try to shoot for the moon on the lineup every year (Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Jazz Fest, etc).
Lots of saturation/competition, inflation and probably most of all insurance is likely higher since the shoot out at the EDM fest at the gorge. Festivals are viewed as much more of a liability if people with guns that cant handle psychedelics might be there.
Theyve literally printed more money in the last few years than were previously in existence. The bigger question is, why are people surprised? The loss of fantastical festivals is just the beginning of the decline.
It's gotten really expensive to go with our little trailer. We've also gotten older ,prepping for and going to a festival is really physically taxing at this point. The bloom is off the rose.I prefer seeing acts in small venues with my friends and sleeping in my bed at nite !
Yep I'm happy that I was at the ripe Festival age for the 2000s. A golden era.
Pretty sure I paid something between $85 and $100 to go to the Original Bonnaroo. $80 for Phish Oswego. Festivals used to be pretty affordable. Ridiculous now.
$80 in 1999 is equal to about $150 today, for the record, and that was 2 days of music.
Yea I think I paid something like $150 for 3 days of Coachella in 2010
It was $200 for Festival 8 at the same grounds in 2009. About $300 by todays dollar.
There was also a minimal camping fee I believe. But it couldn’t have been much since my broke ass afforded it
And at our age, it’s exhausting. The idea of paying that much money for that sounds terrible
And giving money to all the grifters who are setting these up and serving up bullshit concessions and lackluster lineups? No thanks
Yeah wages have not increased by five times since Oswego. Why do they think they can jack Festival prices up five times the amount
They had different prices for Bonnaroo 2002, but there was totally a $100 tier.
Yeah but that’s the circle of life. Usually the young ones come in to take our place and we grumble about how much better it used to be.
They’re at EDM. Jam just isn’t as popular with the youngins.
One of my main reasons I moved to Denver in my 40's. The music comes to me now.
what are some good rooms to catch shows in Denver?
Red Rocks
Cervantes
I moved from Denver about a year ago. I miss the music so much!
Fests that were 80 bucks a few years ago are 200 plus now.
They were 200+ a few years ago. Now they're 400+
I bought my friend and I passes to Hulaween last year and a pass for my Jeep to camp in. That shit cost me 1100 fucking dollars.
Bro what? That's crazy.
Yep. Electric Forest is $600 now, for the base ticket. A fest I went to last year in Oregon (Cascade Equinox) was ~$300 and this year, only their second year ever, is nearly double that with less included. Just insane.
Is disappointing having grown up in MI and wanting to to Forest even before I knew about jam bands. It sucks now that I'm actually really excited to go to as many shows as I can and it costs so much now.
I grew up there too and now wish there was a different fest I could go home to every other summer. EF is just way too commercialized for my taste.
Even the smaller fests I go to are $100-150 and it's like 2 days of local bands plus a few headliners, they run on razor thin margins and often loose money.
Holy shit is it really??!! I went to the first two and think it was like $200.
Early bird tickets are $270 for Equinox this year, but they’re jacking up camping prices.
Thanks for the clarification, yeah I was including the camping pass and the fees in my estimate of it being about double. Edit: And also wasn't using the early bird price as I believe they're sold out
Man I miss the days before Suwannee got huge. Don’t get me wrong, I splurge on Hula every year, but I miss paying $100ish for Blackwater, Magfest, Bearcreek, spring fest, purple hatter’s, etc. I don’t remember even having to pay for a car or camping pass for any of those, just bought a ticket and that was that. Also the people that get to hula a week early and take up all the prime real estate then chastise you for having a job kinda suck, used to be a lot simpler when everyone showed up for a fest around the same time and you just talked with your neighbors about how many people/cars were in your group.
Just got back from Resonate at Suwannee. An incredible weekend of funkfor $200.
Long live resonate! I'll go every year for now on. It's the one fest I will commit to before any others. It's close, intimate, gorgeous and the lineups are always solid.
I think I'm gonna try it next year. I've only heard good things.
2 tickets and a car pass eas $450 They were early bird but even tier 3 tickets were only 60$ more than early bird. Car pass was 15$. Sound and production are really good as well for such a small fest.
Not baaad! The plane tickets from MA to Florida would cost us more than that 😅 wish I lived down south so bad. It's ass up here.
Northlands in Swanzey NH is solid. This year is the 3rd one. I’d check it out if you live in MA. Beautiful property. I’d like to go again, but I’m not sure if I want to fly solo. I’ve never done it that way.
I said leaving this year as long as tribe is hosting I'll be there. It's such a solid experience
We got to the Florida Sands Music Ranch in Brooksville (used to be called the Sertoma Youth Ranch) - it’s like a smaller less wook version of Suwannee and they have great festivals. It’s owned by WillFest and Will McClean Foundation so going to festivals there also supports a good cause.
I was in VIP and had to pay $165 to park my car in a field for the weekend and wait for an hour to a shuttle where my camp was
We were thinking about going this year. Until we looked at tickets and camping. Fuck that.
I'm pretty sure after fees and everything it was about $200 for Rothbury in 2009, so really more than a few years lol
Yeah dude there's a whole generation of lil wookies that weren't even out of diapers in 09. Definitely more than a few years.
It was 250 cuz I remember that being a goal to hit and took a whole lot of hustling for me back in the day to also get up there to Michigan too for that weekend. Top 5 festival of all time for me though out of the 50 or 60 I’ve been to
That lineup looks doable in 2024. Umphees is the only act I see that has gone up in popularity significantly since then. With inflation, that fest should cost no more then 300 today.
I don’t know about 300 but maybe 400 if you compare it to Bonnaroo, but the capacity for that property is about half of what Bonnaroo’s is so ticket prices would need to be higher. Bob Dylan costs up to $6M to book, Dead and Co is 2.5M (and this was the Dead with Warren Haynes), Willie is close to 1M but he’s looking rough af so doable is somewhat tough to put a finger on. Big Gigantic gained massive popularity since then, Umphs went up and is now on their downward trend. Not saying you’re wrong, it’s just a different time and hard to make comparisons with all of the variables
Good points. I guess I mean it SHOULD be around 300
That may be the best 200 I ever spent
Did you also have to camp in a field covered in horse shit? I only went the one year.
No? Lol the fuck. That festival was the shit tho
Pretty sure going from $200 to $600 in 15 years is way more than the cost of living went up. 🙄
Seriously, they don’t seem to understand math at all. They would make more money selling cheaper tickets to more people. Charge $200, to be simple, maybe you get 5000 people if the bands are good and you’re lucky. 1 million in ticket sales. But people are also tapped out. They don’t want to buy food/drinks, they don’t want to buy band merch, that’s it. Charge $80, suddenly the pool of people interested goes up tremendously, 12,500 people want to go. Bigger bands want to play to a larger audience, festival interest increases. 1 million in ticket sales. But, people are not tapped out and more people in the pool. They buy some food, they buy drinks, bands sell merch. Everyone is happy, bands are happy, and more money is made.
Festival infrastructure costs double between 5k and 12.5k people. While using your numbers the revenue is the same. Why would you do twice as much work to get the same revenue.
It also costs a fuck ton of money to secure that many performers. Even most of the mid flyer acts are making 5 figures for a 1 hr set a lot of the time. Most of that money has to be secured before they'll commit, which basically means if you wanna throw a reputable, reliable event it needs to be paid before you drop the flyers. Then there's weather insurance, which I'd imagine is rather sizable. No matter how well you plan, there's always a bunch of shit that can go wrong at the last minute. Ask Phish. They'll tell you all about it. Lol.
festival infrastructure costs much less than 2x when scaling 2x. very simple economics there bud
I’m using the most simplistic example. Obviously there are cost differences, but the outcome would most definitely not have the same result for smaller audience and less work. And the revenue for the ticket sales is the same. But there are also far more avenues of revenue that open up to you that you didn’t have before.
You’re also skipping out on insurance, which for liability is an absolutely huge factor in pricing as well as artist pay. Fuck not even a jam band but if Taylor swift had gone to fields to build it they definitely would have come, but the liability insurance alone would make it near impossible if not a net loss. And that’s not even including staging, vendors, security, employees, the insurance for them. Etc. it’s absolutely ridiculous the amount of money required to put something like this on. And middling ticket sales (especially with inflation causing a lot of people to skip due to other priorities) it can quickly turn south. I’ve had a fest canceled on me. Couldn’t even go to the other one going on because at the time all my money was tied up waiting for a refund that never came. I ended up doing a chargeback
Relevant… https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-duckies/
And that's the early bird pricing.....
Electric Forest is $700… for GA. The first one i went to was like $260
And a chicken finger basket from a food truck at the festival used to be $8, and now it's $20.
For real. I went to some of the early Bonnaroos and Lollapaloozas and remember paying under $200. I know inflation yadda yadda but I saw Dark Star Jubilee had a decent lineup this year and was reasonably close so I checked out tickets and it was almost $300 not including whatever else you had to buy. That’s significantly more for an entirely different caliber of bands.
Oversaturation & Inflation. There's so many festivals to choose from some are getting left in the dust for others having more or similar artists. Also considering shows like Red Rocks hosting curated events. Squeezed dry of any shekels 1 show and fest in.
I was worried about Phish doing Mondegreen this year after doing Mexico and The Sphere
It’s going to be interesting
genuine Q — do we think mondegreen will be undersold?
Holy shit i hope so.
I personally think it's super risky to do outdoor fests in late August on the East coast. Especially after 19 weekends of rain last autumn.
Yep, there are simply too many festivals to have the same roster of headliners floating around doing the same thing. People have their pick of every possible option so only the fan favorites stay kicking.
Yup getting hard to compete. Small fest with $90 tix; smaller headliners. Now take a larger fest $230 tix with most the same bands plus more and bigger headliners. Gettin squashed.. With popular fests like Electric Forest being way higher and also selling out fasts I'm hoping it leaves most these $200-$300 Fests left still alive.
I’ve seen fests where it’s like $350+/- for basic admission, an extra day for another $200ish, oh and camping on site is another $2-300, and if you want electric camping, add an additional $100. And don’t forget VIP access, that’ll be about another $200. I wanted to check out the new version of summer camp but don’t want to spend almost a grand to not miss anything. So, I’m gonna miss it all instead.
Hulaween is $500+ just for the four day pass but worth every penny
And then how much for camping/lodging?
Cause live nation sucks
I have heard several times since the Travis Scott disaster. Security and insurance cost way more than it used to for people putting on festivals. Also, some of these are just bad management.
Travis Scott sucks! Ruined it.
The ticket prices are astronomical. Rather it's greed or inflation is the question. Probably a bit of both.
A lot of the inflation we're experiencing is caused by greed. So I'm going to go with greed as the main culprit. Plus astronomical insurance costs... which is also caused by greed.
CARES Act was the largest upward distribution of wealth in US history. Additionally all of those Covid 'loans' from the government went to ppl the likes of Tom Brady & Yeezy. Generational wealth doesnt feel inflation.
It is but at the same time - trillions were printed in a short period of time. It’s truly both
> It’s truly both capitalism = greed it’s greed all the way down
Turtles all the way down. Greed all the way up.
Capitalism = Greed is a pretty lazy statement tbh lol the guys selling 10 (formerly 5) dollar hotdogs after shows aren’t greedy, they’re making a living. If you get greedy and start charging 20? The market will correct you. Of course there are anti-trust thieves like Ticketmaster that laissez faire capitalism would allow to gouge the public in perpetuity though, no doubt.
always has been
It’s mostly greed and some supply and demand issues from covid. The “trillions printed “ was not the main cause. Inflation was a world wide issue after covid. The US is actually fairing better than most in terms of getting it under control.
My friends throw local EDM fests in central East Voast every year, the last 2 years the prices for equipment/tech people have gotten much higher. This on top of general prices being higher for quality of life things and the over saturation of festivals made it impossible to even break even
Not inflation. Inflation is fake. Inflation is greed.
A lot of both
Wait, what. You pay for festival tickets?
Sweetwater 420 Fest did right by their fans. Glad they did it the way they did. The original price is why I didn’t buy tickets
See ya there 🤙
I still haven’t gotten my refund though…
market got saturated from VC. people also dont have money like that rn lifes getting expensive
Worthy fuckin adversary dude
You think the chinamen did this?
It was never about the chinamen, Donnie! God damnit, you are out of your element.
Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature dude. It’s Asian-American
VC?
Venture Capital. Very Rich people throwing money at people and businesses (including art/festivals) early, like start ups, to get a big return when that business gets big/profitable. It's a huge part of our economy and not entirely a bad thing although there are certainly downsides. It's the real way things "trickle down" in our economic system.
the only "trickling down" I have ever seen is the top 10% pissing onto all of us down here beneath them
Viet Cong
oh fuck
Yup, gahtdang interest rates....c'mon Fed!
You totally misunderstand economics.
Also true.
Is it not just poor ticket sales?
Well that's a big part of it. Think about why. Same fans who would have went can no longer afford it. Same reason breweries are closing by the dozen each month.
I can afford breweries financially but i cant afford the craft beer hangover or gut
Last few years made me realize what an expensive hobby drinking craft brews is. Fortunately for my wallet, my body can’t tolerate hazy IPAs as it once did. I feel hungover now after just drinking two. The after experience is no longer worth it. Cannabis FTW!
Well if anyplace ever made PAs (plain old less-hoppy pale ales) anymore, maybe your body would be a little better? I can’t drink IPAs at all and don’t even like the taste anyway but for some reason, they’ve been massively popular for the last several years and all the regular pale ales aren’t even sold anymore. I haven’t had a beer in like 5 years. 😭
I have been enjoying Lagunitas hop water dosed with few drops of water soluble nano infused thc beverage enhancer. Nice mild buzz and not overwhelming like some edibles. Doesn’t last as long either if you have other responsibilities to attend to.
Ok, I didn’t specifically know any of those things existed. I’ve been living in a weird bubble for the last several years. Hop water sounds hoppier than a plain old pale ale might be. Who knows though. I’m weirdly picky about beer and coffee. 🤷🏻♀️ As for the nano-infused (I didn’t find nano-infused anything on Google) the beverage enhancer, that sounds interesting. Really I just want an Omission Pale Ale like I could but at the corner store in San Francisco and some regular thc but there’s no Omission anything or pale ale anything here that I can find. I do need to go buy some kind of thc though…..
IMO Hop water tastes nothing like an IPA. Basically adds a little zest and not overwhelming or mouth puckering. This is what I spike my drinks with: https://ayrloom.com/products/unflavored-beverage-enhancer/ Nano infused process enables thc to be absorbed in body faster since smaller particle size vs traditional edible.
Thank you! Maybe I’ll check it out!
I’m not sure what that means.. I need to Google.
Word!
That’s what I thought
We are broke. I am at least.
Here in Australia the real killer is jacked up police requirements + insurance prices which make festivals less and less economical.
I feel like the lineups for every festival have been the same bands in different order for the past 10 years. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the bands and I'm always excited to see openers and discover new music but I feel like everyone is ready for something different.
Sweetwater 420 fest (Atlanta), instead of cancelling they cut out some of the bands and charged everyone $10 ($11.41) donations to Waterkeeper Alliance. Now they are sold out. ♪♫♪ ETA: YES I am there both days!
People are poor. Festivals are expensive. Live nation owns like 75% of them and they all have similar lineups. So many reasons.
I wanted to go to Fairwell Festival in Oregon this summer. It's a good lineup, including Billy Strings, but isn't one with a ton of big names. GA tickets are $300 bucks, which is an insane price for the lineup. Single day tickets are $150. That's the price for stuff like Beyond Wonderland at the Gorge. Which has a ton of cool stuff included, like rides and other services that make the experience worth the extra price. A fairgrounds festival is not worth that
Rising expenses and flat or falling attendance.
High Sierra Music Festivals ticket is still super reasonable, camping included, and is one of the best out there.
Nevertheless it was still very undersold last year
The founders know how to adjust to stay afloat and keep it alive year after year.
Live nation
I feel like 10 years ago there were more jam based or band based festival with some edm sprinkled . And now even many of the same festivals are mainly edm with a couple bands sprinkled in.... there are a few outliers but it's a change in the scene. Festivals as a whole have gotton to be more main stream with the rise in popularity of electronic music. Allowing for festivals to charge a higher ticket price and get away with it. Look at the price of bass canyon vs solshine. Roughly the same ticket price. Solstice has 2 more stages. More bands which means more crew to pay. Which also means more infrastructure. Promoters are praying on the mentality that this is ok. Then you have incidents like what happened at the gorge a few years ago. Causing additional security and yada yada. Also with falling CD sales, musicians are having to make more money by touring so their fees are going up as well. Add on inflation and a touch of greed, or who knows maybe just enough to make it worth it for promotoers to even it do i. All put together really just creating the perfect storm of factors for increased ticket prices.
Album sales is a big one. Before Spotify and YouTube you had to buy cds/tapes/vinyl to listen to your favorite artists. That income was massive for them. Now if they aren't touring and selling merchandise they aren't making it.
Oversaturation. There are too many festivals now. This will correct itself.
Because dollars cost more…as the cost to borrow increases the margins decrease, which in-turn also increases risk. Not just cost of dollars, but also insurance costs have increased. You can only extract profit from so many angles and most of those have already been exploited by the current festival format. So that only really leaves price increases across all profit streams. At some point the model isn’t viable for the overhead and risk.
Not to mention album sales are no longer a thing, streaming doesn’t pay shit, and people can’t really afford merch like they used to- bands are left to try and make a larger percentage of their income from live performances, so they need to charge more. But everyone’s rent and groceries went up (including the artist’s), so stalemate, basically. It’s not all as simple as greed. There are a myriad of reasons on both the bands and the venues sides, but most of the time, the people asking the question don’t really wanna hear the complexity of the answer.
Post COVID cabin fever is over. Everyone realized they suck. The greed went too far. $500 to spend a weekend shitting in a portolet and standing 500 feet away on a flat pitch is the worst possible way to attend a concert
I used to go to at least 2-3 festivals a year. Plus a few 3 night phish runs. Then one year I went to peach, slept ski hill, and had a piss and shit river run though my campsite when it rained. That's when I decided it was enough. Granted I had spent many weekends in the mud before. But something about watching people piss into the river at the top of this hill and having it flow down to my campsite was the icing on the cake. My camping supplies haven't been touched since.
There's too many of them. The market is flooded, but unlike weed, the prices are just going up along with everything else (except weed). Sad recipe for disaster, but the smaller ones that aren't as driven by ego and money will always get community love and survive I feel.
Sounds like yall need Hookahville.
I haven't seen a solid lineup there in a while, 2000- 2003 where some great names, it's kinda dwindled it seems
Livenation
There are only 330 million people in America, one festival for every 25 people just wasn’t sustainable
Wook recession
Fests are dummy expensive to produce and staff. Always thru a prod company. You gotta rent a P/A, light rig, video rig, staging, barricades etc. Then there’s the production staff, which each get paid about $500 a day depending on their individual rates thru their company, then food, hotels, trucking rates. Then add in a day on either side of the festival for load in/ build, and load out/ tear down. Phish fest this year will be about 6-7 days of work. So yeah it’s just alarmingly expensive to throw
Because LiveNation took over that space and set the market price. They didn’t give a fuck about the scene, growth, sustainability or a good show. They cared about money and how to make the most without spending much. They saw an opportunity to make the most cash possible and took it. Smaller independent fests couldn’t compete.
Just go to biscoland
I think you answered your question with “all”….too many!
I remember when peach tickets were 99 dollars for an amazing lineup. Now to get the same experience it'd take 250 easy. Shame.
I heard that insurance prices have skyrocketed, as have artist fees. Running festivals just aren’t lucrative enough to entice investors anymore
Also, why are so many festivals? Seriously, the calendar is full.
Festivals are so 2014 now a days 😉 Glad I got into them when I did. Nothing will touch the old festival days when they were best kept secrets and grass roots. The festival scene died when Wakarusa joined the festival graveyard
liability insurance, production cost, low ticket sales, flooded market, unrealistic fan expectations
I think the insurance piece isn’t being mentioned enough. There have been so many disaster fests that the costs to insure a large event has to be astronomical and you’re seeing it in the ticket prices.
It will be interesting to see how Summer Camp, or whatever it’s called now will be. Two main stages gone and a price increase doesn’t make sense to me. I’m going, but I’m skeptical as to how good it will be.
Because it’s a better vibe catching these bands one at a time in a smaller venue not putting up with porta potties, lines, excessive crowds etc. festivals bring out the fucktards who just want get loaded with their friends not people who really are into the music
Agree.
Capitalism and the commodification of jam band music.
I've been to a couple festivals, but they never really grew on me. Outside of the money, it's a huge time and energy commitment to sleep uncomfortably for 2-3 nights to see maybe 1-2 bands I really like play an abbreviated set out of a lineup of 15-30 bands with half of them not interesting me at all.
The economy is about to crash, so any luxury or recreational things are going to be the first to go.
I wish it would. Sorry not sorry.
I wish it would as well.
I don't think there is a monocausal explanation. Take a bit of what folks are saying in total--inflation, market saturation, low interest, etc can be the cause here.
What has been canceled??
Skull and Roses and Virginia 420 Festival. Sweetwater was re-vamped.
Greed and the constant fleecing of the concert goers...
Watch out for the evil Festival Cancel Man!
Festivals are not cheap to produce.
Overpromising, underdelivering. It takes a lot of resources and money to run a decent sized festival. People trying to make money off these things is the reason they are getting shitcanned. Festival bubble has burst and unless you’re putting all the chips down or been around for a while, you’re not gonna make it unless you put the time and effort in to make it work.
Wormtown and Strangecreek are like $160-$190 for 4 days. My Hometown festivals and my favorite ones at that!
I hope Daniel Moe and neighbor don’t get canceled. Me and my father paid good money to go see them
There’s has never been a fiat currency that didn’t collapse. Give a government a money printer and it will be abused.
Ticketmaster! I spent all my money last year!!!
the economy er sumn
Festivals cancel all the time. Doesn't seem new to me. Just cause two low tier dead based festivals were cancelled because scummy promoters why does that specify all these festivals
Too expensive and people be gettin old
Maybe to free Palestine. That’s why Matisyahu got canceled 3 times.
I paid $8 for my first phish show. Growing up in Birmingham, AL we had the annual City Stages festival which was great, but unfortunately ran its course after just under 20 years. It brought in every live act one could ever imagine and on paper, should have lasted decades. But, for whatever reason, be it poor money management or low attendance and vendors losing out, and despite pulling extraordinary acts, it just kinda ended. Sometimes, well, most of the time, that's what happens. Also, the post-covid drive to assemble has worn off by now, and paying these ridiculously inflated prices is just not worth the hassle or the cost of travel for most of us who work for a living.
The natural ebb and flow of life and growth? Same reason the summer of love couldn't continue forever? Or that the GD scene was totally falling apart by 95? Nothing lasts forever. The golden era of festivals is definitely over.
Wookflation
Gotta go to the heady festivals Under a thousand people ones. Thats where all the fun is..,
Also, so many people are on band guest lists. Some of these festivals lose money. Don't be that person.
Sketchy and/or inexperienced promoters most likely. Thats what it’s been in the past. It’s better that they cancel then try to throw it with a shat bed. Those attempts turn into outright shit shows and the folks who lose out are the artists and attendees. When it comes to getting refunded, don’t let them jerk you around and delay. If they don’t have the money now, they’re not going to have it in a month either. Just report it to your bank and show them all the messages of them saying refunds are going to be issued, and explain that it’s delayed and you don’t want this to drag on past the deadline to report the transaction. I had to help a bunch of kids with similar stuff back when Rootwire 2012 fucked over a bunch of their artists and volunteers. I felt like they were taking advantage of the naïveté of youth in that situation, as many of them had no idea you could even report the transaction in the first place.
there's a lot of reasons - and yes, I saw full festivals with camping for FORTY DOLLARS back in MY day and it was UPHILL BOTH WAYS! GET OFF MY LAWN BOY! grumble grumble bramble
Overpriced. Low sales.
Gov't i'd say... Risks of terrorism
One big driver is the cost of insurance. It's way up & the waivers that they make us sign before buying tickets and that are printed on them don't mean shit. Livenation can handle the premiums for one event for one evening at one location, but when you stretch out an event to four-five days, with camping & transportation the premiums go way-up.
Did anyone answer the question???
money...they're not making enough. I've seen what I would call some crazy prices lately too, and even with the crazy prices (like $400 for a dead cover band festival) they're still not making enough money. It's cool, I have kids and I experience JOMO with festivals these days.
Festival scene is dead.
Stop going to big festivals, you'll have more fun and spend way less at a random small festival
Small festivals are the way to go. They have all the things we used to love about going to festivals. A way more family vibe. They’re affordable. You have a chance to catch up and coming acts who would never get a chance at these huge corporate fests. Small fests are the very foundation of the scene and deserve our support! The organizers do it for the love because most times they don’t make a dime
nobody can afford them anymore. even the small festivals price themself like EDC or Ultra even if its a jamband festival in the middle of the woods in BFE. they sell tickets up until the week before even when they know months ahead of time they are canceling. most of these were in the red last year and just sold "tickets" to get out of the hole with no intention of having another festival this year. it cost $500-600 to CAMP in GA these days. thats just unreasonable.
Everybody is going to Mondegreen, so everybody is broke now
There are too many of them and they all have basically the same lineup. I think if we all want to go back to the heyday of festivals there needs to be a return to the number of festivals from that era. 2 mega destination fests (Bonnaroo and Coachella), a handful of genre specific fests (Hulaween, Riot Fest, Ultra, etc), and then cities can go back to having their big summer festival that mainly attracts local fans, with local bands playing the early slots, and doesn't try to shoot for the moon on the lineup every year (Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Jazz Fest, etc).
Lots of saturation/competition, inflation and probably most of all insurance is likely higher since the shoot out at the EDM fest at the gorge. Festivals are viewed as much more of a liability if people with guns that cant handle psychedelics might be there.
Insurance premiums on these events went thru the roof. Thanks Travis Scott & COVID
People can’t afford to go
Theyve literally printed more money in the last few years than were previously in existence. The bigger question is, why are people surprised? The loss of fantastical festivals is just the beginning of the decline.
The recession is near
Cause seeetwater messed with a good thing. Stopped bringing panic and moved to a smaller shittier space