Educate yourself.
The music festival scene can at best, be described as lucrative. Its scope has changed massively over the years, from the free-for-all Woodstock which was all about the hippie culture to the present times, when one ticket to the famed Secret Solstice in Iceland costs a neat 1 million dollars. Things are changing and the industry is not exactly what we always thought it to be.
So here are a few facts about the boom of the music festivals that you may not have known!
1. Investments and money
This is not really a surprise. Festivals are expensive affairs. A recent study concluded that patrons end up spending around 200-300 dollars per day in festivals, including food, drinks, stay and entry fee. There is a lot of investment that goes into attending a music festival, by the attendees AND the organizers. A festival is nothing without a sponsor. And there is a more than equal profit to be made from it as well. Some sponsors, such as Redbull have gone ahead and made their very own music festivals. In 2014 itself, LollapaloozaΒ made $29 million, the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco grossed $19 million and the Electric Daisy Carnival Festival in New Jersey made $7.2 million.
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2. Music festivals are a brand.
Its all about who’s performing where. Music festivals have become a hotspot to check out favourite artists as well as find out new ones. Attaching yourself to the brand of a festival is quite crucial for public opinion. The bigger, the better the festival the more hype its surrounded with. Festivals such as Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, EDC, Coachella and Ultra and all the other massive names, take great care in associating themselves with artists. And this exclusivity is deserved by the attendees, as the admission fees of each festival is a small fortune. Festivals take their brand image seriously and living up to preset standards is extremely crucial.
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3. The lineups
Music festivals are a great place for people to find out about new bands. You’re going to be exposed to a lot of new music and there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to like some of it. After all, festival line ups are curated with extreme care. The potential or present popularity of each artist is considered, because in the age of social media it just takes one really good performance for an artist to become the next sensation. The other side to this story would be the fact that juts like the audience, the line ups seem to be getting younger. Unless you are a Guns n’ Roses reunion, its highly unlikely you’re going to get much attention. Older musicians are only considered if they massive crowd pulling ability.
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4. It’s all about the experience!
Line ups are not the only thing organisers are going to be careful about. Music festivals are all about the experience. Thus, the location of the festival can make or break it. Its all about getting away from mundane life and so festivals are required to be constantly go the extra mile, sometimes quite literally, to give attendees an experience completely suspended from reality. From partying it up in glaciers to forests, you have a music festival for them all. People don’t go to them just for the music, they go there to be a part of an experience.
5. Millennials are the target audience.
According to a study released by Billboard.com, 32 million people in the U.S. attend at least one music festival. And out of that, 14.7 million are millennials. They are the market that each organiser taps into for maximum attendance. For the typical youth who is bored of work and daydreams of escaping to exotic locations on his desk, music festivals are the perfect escape. This is the place they can chill, listen to some great music and hang out with friends. Plus, it makes for some really great Instagram pictures. For millennials, music festivals are just a lifestyle now.
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6. Social media
Everything about everything can be known by the interwebs. Recent stats revealed by Twitter helped conclude who were the most talked about artists in the first weekend of Coachella. By the way, there were 3.5 million tweets in the first weekend itself. Another ‘study’, though based on extremely shaky ground, studied the kind of intoxicants (alcohol and drugs) being used in certain festivals based on their Instagram mentions. Like we said, its shaky, but it goes to show how much social media is changing the festival scene. If you go to a music festival and do not let the internet know, have you really gone?
(Image Credits: mashable.com)
7. Increase in drug related deaths and accidents
Its scary to see how hand-in-hand drugs and music festivals are. You know for sure that everyone inside is tripping on some random concoction of chemicals because that’s the ‘real’ way to enjoy music, isn’t it? But things seem to be getting out of control as the number of drug related deaths in festivals are at an all time high. A recent news report spoke about a 15 year old drug who overdosed while she was at a music festival with her friends. The social representation of music festivals as affairs of total debauchery and abandon has been credited to the increase in the usage of drugs. The increase in security everywhere seems to have no effect on the use of drugs during festivals.
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8. Tech in festivals is going places
Music festivals are the surprising hub of new tech. Actually, not that surprising. Because where else are you going to get such a large number of network-strapped people who are most likely to be your target audience as well? Tech companies try out new technologies here at most times, some successful and some not so much. Tomorrowland introduced a ‘friend’-ing device in their 2014 festival bands, to help you stay in touch with all the friends you make in there. You simply touch your band to the others’s and voila! a friend request has been sent to each other! Coachella got into the entire Virtual Reality aspect by giving away VR headsets to attendees to ensure a pretty sick experience. Apps are not far behind. Firechat, an app that lets you text your friends without a working mobile network making use of Bluetooth technology is exactly what our next festival needs.
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9. Its absolutely fantabulous for the economy.
Countries with popular music festivals such as the US, UK, Croatia and other European countries consider festivals some of their biggest tourist attractions. And they sure as hell are. Hundreds of thousands of people make their way to them every year and this means booming business for the locals. Another aspect of festivals is the ‘staycation’. Most attendees try and make the most of the travel by staying on and exploring the country even after the festival has ended. They end up travelling to other cities to check out popular sites and this constant flow of tourists serves as great business. Not to mention that music festivals create pools of job opportunities that benefit the hosting cities tremendously. Roadies, volunteers, management, organisers are all being hired and local talents are usually given preference.
(Image Credits: www.rollingstone.com)