NPR Podcast Asks: Are Music Festivals Dead?

[ivn]

Comments

[anterrabre]

I think it's two things; promoters trying to nickel and dime for everything as well as the crowd. Burning Man now has a completely different vibe now than it did years ago, and people serious about music want to be around fellow music fans; they don't want to be around a bunch of influencers who can't even pretend to be interested in the bands.

[my_moloko]

I mean, when I look at those crowd sizes when Chappell has performed I'd say no. But tbh, I have not willingly gone to a festival since 2003. I'd much rather see an individual band than spend all day in the hot sun seeing a bunch of bands. I will say though, the lineup for All Things Go looked incredible and if I had to go to one, that's the one I'd choose.

[ellie_andrews]

i went to Bonnaroo in 2013, and i'm glad i got to experience it at least once. (and got to see Paul McCartney and Tom Petty!) but yeah, have no desire to do something like that again.

[sillyskinny]

I don't think so. The hype just died down.

For a few years, people, especially influencers, made attending festivals a large part of their personality / branding. Because of that, many new festivals popped up. It's become too much. Too many events and obviously not enough money, especially with the ever increasing costs of attenting festivals.

Now it's gone back to how it was ~10 years ago.

[tonicol]

I live in Mexico and we have 3 big name festivals but the past few years a lot of smaller ones have been popping up around the country and I think the market it’s just saturated, like Paul McCartney is headlining a festival in November and you would think a Beatle would be a big draw but the festival is not selling

[zibbydoo324]

I think music festivals are facing the same problem as everything else now - the over saturation of the market. There are SO MANY of them now. Plus, I feel like the united states has gotten even less communal the last 5 years so it seems hard for things to really reach the masses.

[scriptedending]

100%. There are way more festivals now than there ever were because the promoters wanted to entice every subset of music fans to their own festival, but the audience for that many annual festivals is not sustainable.