C/D: Music festivals

WTF is a "festival"? It seems to me like a bunch of concerts that happen to be in the same town at the same time-- just like every other day of the year. Does anyone like these things, and why? I guess I never really understood the point. Is it just a marketing gimmick?

(by the way, I'm talking about the kind they hold in nightclubs in cities, not the outdoor kind)

Sounds like you haven't really given it much thought.

For one thing, it can be difficult to sell tickets to a single concert by, for example, a free jazz player or free improvisor, but if you book a bunch of them for the same week or weekend and turn it into a festival, you get a little critical mass as it were, and suddenly people are willing to travel to the event.

For another thing, if you get a bunch of shows together into a festival, you can sell sponsorship and underwriting and reduce your costs.

no different to a movie festival. multiple venues, multiple bands. right?

The Regatta Bar (upscale Harvard Square hotel bar) holds a "Jazz Festival" every year that lasts three months and consists of the acts they happen to book during Harvard's spring semester. Kind of lame to pass it off as a festival, but they do.

As someone who's made it to FIMAV twice and Big Ears once, I'm going to go out on a limb and say Classic.

xp dad a: yeah, that'd be best called a "series" ... people like to call all sorts of things "festivals" in a similar manner as they are fast and loose with the word, "curated."

It just seems like the word "festival" is overused. The word "festival" makes it sound utterly unlike what it actually is when you get there.

what do you expect it to be like?

I expect it to be like the good time I'm having right now (he said, posting from the On Land Festival waiting for Christina Carter to start).

"I can see these bands anytime" vs. taking three/four days and actually doing it.

Unless it's hilarious shit like the "after the jump festival" which features appx zero bands anyone would want to see

i've taken note of quite a few festivals like this ... except they're clueless about the fact that next to no one wants to see these bands/musicians.

what do you expect it to be like?

I guess something other than me standing alone in the street with a ticket and a trying to decide what bar to go to.

generally speaking, dud

Mike Crandle of Bear Stearns, do you actually like live music at all?

Yes, I do. And again, I'm not talking about the kind where there's 50 bands playing in some park. I'm talking about where they have 50 bands playing in 25 different concert venues around one city for 2 nights. How the hell is that a "festival"? I'm just saying, I don't see how it's anything but a bunch of unrelated concerts that happen to be held in close proximity to each other, and that happen to be marketed simultaneously.

I don't think Mr. Crankypants here likes to have "fun".

yes, we must destroy those who may question the festival and its nebulous purpose

No, it just seems like your reasons for questioning the festival and its nebulous purpose are dumb and/or spoiled, to the extent that they're even expressed. But I am sorry you didn't figure out which bands you wanted to see before you wound up standing alone in the street with a ticket in your hand.

OK, so you've acknowledged that it's a marketing gimmick used to attract a larger crowd and that it's a business decision used to lower costs. Thank you for your input. You have responded with a "Classic." As a consumer, I'm still ambivalent about them, though I definitely don't like the term "festival" for 50 separate concerts held at different venues. I wouldn't go so far as to call them "Dud", but I think these events deserve a new name in order to not devalue real festivals.

this thread would be 100% clearer if you said "CMJ and SXSW-style festivals" or something like that, you keep referring to these kind of festivals as if they're the only kind.

Please give your definition of a real festival. (xpost)

Just so you don't think I'm being totally contrary, I agree with you on the dislike for simultaneous events at a music festival. One thing I really like about FIMAV (25 or so concerts, 3 venues, 4 days) is that if you have the stamina, you can see/hear the whole thing.

Correction, 5 days.

okay, I had look up what FIMAV stood for (and now I'm slightly embarrassed because I'm pretty familiar with its existence) -- it's pretty well regarded and gets a lot of great acts.

DUD

I'm all for spending a few hours at a show but 3 or more days? Not for me.

this thread would be 100% clearer if you said "CMJ and SXSW-style festivals" or something like that, you keep referring to these kind of festivals as if they're the only kind.

I did here:
And again, I'm not talking about the kind where there's 50 bands playing in some park. I'm talking about where they have 50 bands playing in 25 different concert venues around one city for 2 nights.

Anyway, like I said in my previous post, I wish there were standard terms to differentiate the two, because the latter to me is not really a "festival."

Please give your definition of a real festival.

I was being a little facetious with my term "real festival", but I'd define it as the aforementioned "50 bands playing in some park" or something like that. Basically, the key is that all the shit has to be in one place. There should not be segregated crowds of people in areas that are potentially miles apart or scattered across dozens of nightclubs.

I meant from the very beginning the thread title/premise was really ambiguous.

I'm talking about where they have 50 bands playing in 25 different concert venues around one city for 2 nights

tbf this would indeed suck, and i don't know anything about cmj or sxsw and the like but i can't really imagine this scenario, much less it happening enough times in any city (except maybe ny? but then isnt it easy to get around there i dunno) that it becomes a major cause for concern. even in l.a i've only been to one 'festival' that resembles this and it involved 3 or 4 venues in about a square mile area over 3 or 4 days, which was actually a good excuse to walk around and actually take in the neighborhood and not get stir crazy looking at the same people in the same bars.

The word "festival" makes it sound utterly unlike what it actually is when you get there.

I do understand this complaint, but what's funny is that the main event it really applies to is CMJ, which if I remember correctly is a marathon and not a "festival." Which is handy, because a "marathon" makes it sound exactly how it's gonna feel when you're trying to get across town to a set that starts in six minutes.

The other thing that's weird about this question (in terms of CMJ / SXSW) is that the roots of these things aren't that opaque, are they? CMJ in particular has existed as way more of a conference than any kind of offering to the NYC public, who get to see stuff anyway. If you happened to run a college radio station in a town that wasn't convenient to any big-city venues, why wouldn't you want to see dozens and dozens of acts in one trip, and do all your networking with labels or publicists or whatever, and hang out with other people in the same position as you? If you were just a music lover who lived someplace that didn't get good shows, why not take one short trip that affords you more and bigger show options than any other random week would? I mean, that's the fundamental idea -- in CMJ's case, it just happens to be aided by the fact that if there are loads of good showcases happening, plenty of New Yorkers will come out and help subsidize them, too.

When Noise Pop was still going on in Chicago it was one of the "bad" festivals in this thread's sense, but actually I thought it was pretty awesome b/c I was living 2 hours from the north side at that point and so having a bunch of shows at the same time meant that I could find a friend to stay with for a few days and just go to a bunch of shows w/o driving back and forth from home each night.

Anyway, the Part Time Punks festival ruled.

jazz butcher fish dude playing an acoustic set at the echo tonight

great stuff ned. so for against dropped out of the lineup?

Apparently, haven't heard why but someone's said something somewhere, I'm sure.

Revive (and yes, we started with "not the outdoor kind" but...)

Jazzfest is the worst music festival i've ever been to. The fairgrounds are terrible, the lineup is always boring. The only good thing about it is the crawfish pies. Just noting this in case we decide to poll Least Favorite Music Festival Ever.

― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, October 5, 2011 12:50 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

Starting in 1988 I went to Jazzfest 16 years in a row, and a few other times since, so I'm more than a little biased, but I have seen/heard more amazing music here than any other festival. I generally don't care as much about the non-local big name acts (although there have been some great ones: Al Green, Ruth Brown, Etta James, Little Milton...) and at the smaller stages Teena Marie, Bobby Blue Bland, Celia Cruz, Joe Zawinul, Sonny Rollins, World Sax Quartet...) and I'll occasionally wander over to see a show like Brian Wilson, or Robert Plant/Allison Krauss that turn out to be excellent.

But the wealth of local music has always been the drawing card, and over the years the great stuff has been almost countless: Danny and Blue Lu Barker, Fats Domino, Beau Jocque, Johnny Adams, John Mooney, The Wild Magnolias... Man, any time Snooks Eaglin played was worth my ticket price.

> Unless it's hilarious shit like the "after the jump festival" which features appx zero bands anyone would want to see

> i've taken note of quite a few festivals like this ... except they're clueless about the fact that next to no one wants to see these bands/musicians.

Actually this is one of the few things I like about festivals - hearing some band that nobody's ever heard of that turns out to be great.

I lived in New Orleans so seeing the local bands play at Jazz Fest, either in the heat or the rain, was the absolute worst place to see them play. The big name national acts are always geared towards very boring, middle aged to elderly people. See: Robert Plant/Allison Krauss. I guess it's fine if you're in from out of town and you can't see those locals play at their usual haunts, but for a local, the vibe of their sets is all wrong when they play at Jazz Fest. They typically play in very small bars and I'm pretty sure you can appreciate the difference in vibe from a festival stage to a bar with <500 capacity.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a massive difference when you live in a city world-renowned for its music. I'm always just like a kid in a candy store in N.O., because a lot of those artists are never gonna tour to me. (Although many have and continue to.) I've been in a lot of the small bars (Benny's, Donna's, Vaughn's, Fred Kemp's, Lion's Den, Mother-in-Law Lounge) and they're awesome, especially during non-JF times, but I am also a non-smoker, and fond of the outdoors/sun/heat and the whole festival vibe. (And also middle-aged, but hopefully not boring.)

I saw some great Louisiana swamp pop one year at Jazz Fest, plus its great to be able to see all that New Orleans jazz,brass band, soul, gospel and zydeco and Cajun in one place. I didn't see it, but recently one year they had the Ponderosa Stomp people put together a set for one time in the fest. I bet that was great. Could it better sure. But so could All Tommorrow's Parties or whatever.

Could it be better, sure.

My home state's major summer festival, Taste of Minnesota, booked mostly washed-up dino rockers when it was a free event. Then they got some hipper bands, starting charging admission, and went broke.

I'm doing Winnipeg Folk Festival pretty much every year now; that's fun, but camping-centric. Other festivals I have enjoyed: Bumbershoot in Seattle (although queueing up to see the indoor shows is a hassle) and SXSW, although more queueing, cramped clubs.

this one looks like it was pretty awesome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Fair_and_Magic_Mountain_Music_Festival

I think that's the one where Beefheart freaked out and walked off of the edge of the stage and then Ry Cooder quit and they had to cancel their appearance at Monterey Pop!

Music Midtown/Live Nation promoter Peter Conlon, on annoying wannabe rockers

"People who pretend to be musicians who really aren't — especially local musicians. ... If you're working in a bar, and you're a bartender but you play in a band, you're a bartender. It's how you make your living. If you're making your living as a musician full time, you're a musician. This is a business of talent. People in this business seek talent out. If you're talented, someone's gonna find you and you're gonna get discovered. If you're still flailing around and you're in your late 20s or 40s, you probably don't have any talent and you should really look at plan B. A lot of people come to me and they're still waiting to get discovered, but look, it's hard to hide talent. In our business, people will find you and make you a star. When people claim to be musicians but they're working as bartenders or waiters, it's just not the same thing. It takes away from the people who really do have talent."

http://clatl.com/atlanta/music-issue-2012-atlanta-promoters-and-players-on-piss-poor-performance/Content?oid=5620412&storyPage=2

This caused a pretty big stir when it was published.

lol

lol x2

Fun to rip on DeRo, but I love it when he keeps his reporter hat firmly on and tilts at windmills, in this case another music festival, this one in DC:

http://www.wbez.org/blogs/jim-derogatis/2015-09/lollapalooza-gang-invades-national-mall-113058

In the future, the entire music industry will apparently be reduced to a series of big music festivals.

so ..
boomtown festival this year.
this happened

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-37083532

mk1 was there having driven in my car.

turns out that cars next to ours were burnt out, but ours survived !

Summer Sonic, a Japanese festival is running a live stream of last year's highlights, starting now.

As always with J festivals, a decent mix of Japanese and Western bands, Kraftwerk, MBV, The 1975, Metafive, Cornelius...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUaGX2j5OOI