NPR Podcast Asks: Are Music Festivals Dead?

[ivn]

Comments

[peddlestools]

massive attack is playing a music festival in town and i want to go but also i saw drone footage from previous years and i'm gonna have to pass on that

also idk what time they would go on because it's from 3pm to 4am and is also targeted at EDM festival people and i absolutely do not want to be around all of that mishegas

[ritaamber]

Mumford & sons (when touring) used to do festivals is random smaller towns around the world. And they were fun because it was just do random. But I'm to old to stand for 12 hr a day for 3 days. I don't want to run through a field to get to the barricade. And being in the heat. Nah. Assigned seats indoors is the way to go

[ilovespooons]

idk if this is due to some sort of private equity buy outs or just regular corporate greed but the prices keep going up while the quality gets worse. Plus the saturation - I went to 2 smaller fests that I'd never even heard of (though it wasn't the first 5 years for either) this year so I don't need to go to the big ones

[awkward_as_heck]

Japan used to reliably get Download and/or Loud Park for two days every year but the last Loud Park line up was uninspiring and there hasn't been one this year.

Of the groups to come this year, it's definitely more A-list and legacy groups rather than B-list acts and even some of those are not coming. We didn't get Ghost during their Impera/Re-Impera tour.

There's still Summer Sonic, but even that is smaller than years past.

[maclou]

I mostly just follow Japanese events and they have lots of fests and other things idk if they’re really considered festivals but it’s usually like 5 or so groups playing an arena or theater and are usually Japanese and/or Korean acts. I noticed in recent years quite a few have been cancelled and I was always confused because some of the acts involved were pretty big and the headliners should have been able to at least come close to being able to sell these venues out on their own. But fact is these groups will tour solo or have solo events at least once every year, their fans know this and with money getting tighter and tighter they’re making the choice to not shell out the money to see multiple groups and waiting for the solo lives.

I see a similar sentiment from kpop fans when there are kpop fests in the US. Back in the day stuff like this would be the only chance ppl would have to see their favorite groups but it's just not like that anymore.

[koushiba]

I listened to this podcast a while back about music festivals in Japan! And how the yen and the heat was affecting them:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/podcast/2024/07/04/deep-dive/summer-festivals-climate-change/