December 27, 2024 • 44 mins
Of the many things we will leave in 2024, one that really hurts is the music festival. 50% of music festivals across the world were cancelled. Today Prop tells y'all about the main reasons this happened and what we can do to save the music.
Sources:
https://www.musicfestivalwizard.com/music-festivals-cancelled-so-far-in-2024/
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2024/08/23/60-uk-music-festivals-canceled-in-2024-alone/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Als media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
If Robert can do his a tonal shreeks, then I
can sing off key yo, I'm back. Help me all
up in your feed. Wast these rap gus get all
up in your feed. That's a wu tang reference again
to the Black delegation, shout out y'all showing up on
the in the subreddit. You feel me, Black folks showing
up and showing out. I appreciate y'all.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I was wrong. It's more than five of us. I
shout out to you, man. I love y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thanks for showing up, and shout out all the Latinos
who tapped into and le puez. Hey gontodo MI hint
ben at gay when valivo listen.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
We gotta really invite our Latino brothers and sisters, our
Theos and diaz and also our Asian black people, the
penoise and Penis, our Athes and Quias.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
You're all a part of our delegation here, all of
our USO. We love y'all.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
The whole diaspora of people who seizon their chicken and
wash their legs. I love y'all, And to this whole
delegation once we add it all together is about twenty
of us to you. I say, y'all want something from
the gas station. I got you so today. I don't
want to ruin your breakfast. I don't want to ruin
your coffee. I'm just gonna ruin your music. This is
(01:23):
about the death of the music festival. It already happened
here all right now, y'all know I'll be playing. I'm
playing about all this like I'm only talking to the
melanated folks. Y'all.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Y'all know I'm playing, right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean, this is why while I slowly wink at
the brown folk, I'm just playing, y'all. I'm sorry, I'm
messing around. It's called opening. You know, you guys got
a great sit to humor here. All right, let's get
to it. Festivals like, am I right? You know, if
you're anywhere within a five to ten mile radius of
my age, I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Festivals is like these are like a write of passage.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
You know, I am not only a festival goer, but
a festival performer and as an artist. It was like
festivals were kind of in a lot of ways how
I marked the years. There were people that I really
only saw like once a year, when I was at
that festival, whether it was other acts, other bands, or
even a lot of times the volunteers or the people
that like put the event together, like you believe it
(02:25):
or not, you kind of make friends, you know, and
he's again, these are people You're like, Dang, I can't
believe it was a whole year, you know, And it
was a good way to make sure as an artist
that you were making new music and had something new
to perform. Oh, and make sure you had some new
merch because you know, if you played your cards right,
if you've listened to my show, I've talked a lot about, like,
you know, the science of festivals and as a performer
(02:46):
of like this could either be a complete waste of
time and money if you're on at like the main
stage at like twelve noon when it's like a trillion
degrees outside, you know, but if you can get that
right as the sun set, like if you're not the headliner,
if you could get that right at sunset, right where
the sun just breaks the horizon line coming down that.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
That golden hour set.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
The crowd isn't shitfaced yet, you know, they're at the
top of their molly.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You feel you're riding the high.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is just settled in or whatever drugs that these
people are on, they've kind of just settled in right there.
They're relaxed, they're willing to sing along. Nobody's getting trample jet.
It's not like the frenzy that kind of happens at
the headliner situation, where like somebody might die. Shout out,
astro world. I say that not as a joke. I'm
(03:37):
saying things can go wrong, but oh the experience. Man, Like,
I don't know how old you are, and obviously you
can't answer me. Do you remember the last like big
festival you went to, you know, back when your knees
were good and it was okay for you to stand
for twelve hours And there's somebody you know, having sexual
intercourse in the porter potty. You know, you're stepping over
barf right, and you just paid thirty dollars for a
(04:00):
bottle of water, you know that you could stuff into
your clear backpack because you weren't allowed to bring anything
else in there. But man, that's probably a euphoria, especially
if it's a group or a band that you really
like that you saved up all year to go see.
You know, some people were like festival operas, Like that's
their thing. They spend their summer going to music festivals.
Since twenty twelve up to twenty fourteen, like the music
(04:22):
fest has been guys, we've.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Kind of been on borrow time.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
We've we lived through a music festival renaissance. According to NPR,
since twenty thirteen, everything sold out, the four mega giants, right, so, Coachello, Bataru,
Lolla Palooza in Chicago, Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas.
It was like this never ending flow of amazing, amazing events,
(04:50):
and you know what, they were kind of affordable. In
the next five years, you had things taken forth like
Pitchfork in Chicago, Hangout Music Festival on the Beach and
the Gulf Shore outside Lands, Bali Music, Mount Oasis, Electronic Music.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Festival, Forecastle Festival. Right, and I'm even.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Gonna add in this, before all this for hip hop stuff, dude,
we had rock the bells. Like we lived in a
time where you could see all of your favorite artists
in the most epic locations. You'd see people who if
you were to try to buy their tour ticket, it
would cost the same amount if they were headlining the
(05:29):
thing but you could see all your favorite acts. Part
of this was because we listened to radio, you were
exposed to more things and it was probably the fun
part about a lot of times about music festival is
because you probably saw that act, your favorite band, your
favorite rapper, you saw them at a hole in the
wall five years ago, which was like ten bucks to
(05:50):
get in, and you might have snuck in or got
on the list because you knew somebody that knew the DJ.
And now you're like, I followed this crew from when
they were like playing a whole in a wall with
ten people, where there was more staff at the bar
than on this and now you're like, dude, you feel
like you were a part of their evolution. Like you
saw Chance at the Subterranean, Now he's headline at Bonaru.
(06:13):
What a feeling you're part of the story. Well, that's
probably a relic of the past, and let's talk about it.
So festivals for most of the last decade have been
everywhere like whatever type of music you like, whatever subgenre,
whatever part of the world you want to go to,
there's a music festival that you can show up at. Now,
(06:34):
in twenty twenty four, more than half of them across
the world were canceled.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I lost count on this page.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I'm about to read to y'all from Musicfestival Wizard dot Com.
Festival's canceled so far in twenty twenty four. Okay you
ready for this? Shindig twenty twenty four, Melt twenty twenty four,
Sideways Festival, No Stock Field, Maneuvers, Tower z The Quintinin
Big Slap, Electric Zoo Peach twenty twenty four. All the
Music Festival Life Is Beautiful Festival, Country Thunder Florida, Swanee
(07:04):
Roots Festival, edc China, Lucidity Festival in Santa Barbara, Desert
Days in Lake Paris, Pinefest in the UK, Good Vibes
Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sierra Nevada World Music Festival
in Booneville, El Dorado Music Festival in the UK, Sudden
Little Thrills in Pittsburgh, Big Ridge Rock Fest in Virginia,
(07:26):
Lollapalooza Paris Music Midtown Atlanta, Lovers and Friends Fest in
Las Vegas, which I was really sad about. Riverside Festival,
Glasgow in where Glasgow, Soul Bloom Sacramento tw Classic twenty
twenty four, in Belgium, Kaylamijas in Kaylamijas, Spain, Caldoora music
festival in Queensland, Made An America Festival Philadelphia, Oblivion Access
(07:51):
Austin Texas, Meadows in the Mountains twenty twenty four in Bulgaria,
Imagine Festival in Rome, Georgia, Splendor on the Grass in
Byron By Australia, Body and Soul Festival in Ireland, Moon
Rose Festival. I'm tired of I'm not even done yet,
I'm not even halfway through this thing.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Festivals died in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Digital News reports that sixty festivals in the UK alone canceled.
Ashley King wrote this article on August twenty third, twenty
twenty four, for Digital Music News, and in that she
says the United Kingdom has lost one hundred and ninety
two music festivals since twenty nineteen, according to the Association
of Independent Festivals the AIF, which is a not for
(08:34):
profit trade festival association that represents the interest of over
two hundred independent UK music festivals that range from five
hundred to eighty thousand people. The AIF estimates that the
UK lost ninety six events during the COVID pandemic thirty
six festivals and in twenty twenty three, more than sixty
to date in twenty twenty four. That brings the total
(08:55):
number of festival closures either due to cancelation or post
pullment up to one hundred and ninety two since twenty nineteen,
one hundred and ninety two festivals. Some may argue that, well, damn,
you shouldn't have had that many festivals, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and
of course the infamous burning Man with the most on
(09:19):
brand people that go that call themselves burners. Now, I
don't want to sit here and make fun of you burners,
because I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
A lot of y'all listen to this show number one
and number two.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I don't know if there's anybody more free, anybody more
comfortable in their own skin.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
This might sound like a joke, Okay, I'm dead serious.
It's like the white guy with dreadlocks. I mean, white
people with dreads are just most of the time, Okay,
Like this may sound like a joke, I'm deadly serious.
They be so okay with themselves and will do whatever
they got to do to continue to stay present and
(09:58):
be cool with themselves, no notes. It's the guy doing
hypostatic breath work, freestyling for way too long in the
dig redoce section. You know what I'm saying, Like he's
super okay with himself anyway. Burning Man for the first
time since twenty eleven, did not sell out for the
first time, And the tickets are usually released in tears
(10:20):
and some go on sale in the beginning of the year,
and then this part I'm getting from the Guardian, but
the main starting in April, right, which typically gets snapped
up in minutes, like Burning Man sells out in minutes.
Seventy three thousand people are able to attend Burning Man,
but this first time since twenty eleven, they did not
sell out. Coachella saying they saw a fifteen percent decline
(10:45):
in tickets. It's the biggest festival in North America. Coachella
is fifteen percent ticket decline. Festivals were a way for
you to discover new music, to meet new friends.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
It's like camp for like your twenties.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
You know, you get to wear your dumb ass outfits, right,
you get to stand out in the sun, you get
to drink, you get to day drink, and you get
to just lose your mind for a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
This might be the end, the endling.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
You may have attended your last music festival as we
know it. So the question is why who killed the
music festival? Why is the festival not festiving it? Why
is it not festive? Why can't y'all sell no tickets?
Do we not like music anymore? Do you like music?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Still? I thought, I still like? Do you like music? Still?
What the hell happened in y'all?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Oh? Oh oh oh oh?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
We'd back back back back, yack back uh erh.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
To understand the future as to what the hell happened,
we have to ask ourselves how we even.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Got here such a nerd I am.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I don't think I need to tell you what a
music festival is, because I mean, I think you know
what it is. It's an incredibly overpriced concert that features
maybe four groups that you like, where you are going
to stand outdoors somewhere brave the weather day, drink and
then get to lose your mind for the last like
(12:25):
three hours and just really enjoy, you know, a moment
that you'll really never forget. Depending on how nasty and
ratchet you are, how outside you are, you might look up.
You know what I'm saying, I don't. Look, it's none
of my business. I suggest you don't. That's just me
being an old head. But either way, man, they're a
great time. But please understand that festivals, music festivals go
(12:47):
like back to get this, five eighty two b C.
At least according to white people's history, because you know,
silly you, nothing happened anywhere else.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Except for Europe.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That was music festivals in Africa, Central South America, Asia,
no nowhere else.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
It don't.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
History started in Greece. We were too busy building pyramids.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
Right anyway, I'm gonna lead out put oh, but every
cracking you up. They'd be like the first music festival
on record in ancient Greece during the Pytheon Games, which
is fine, it's it's fine, it's fine, but understand, at
the way the world just the only one.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That ever happened anyway, So five eighty two BC, right,
And like the Olympic Games, the Pytheon Games took place
every four years and included poetry reading, a speech, right,
and other musical game like competitions. People gathered to enjoy,
like hymns and instruments instrumental performances at the Apollo at
(13:54):
the Apollo I'm So Black dedicated to Apollo, which was
the god of arts and music. Now fast forward to
the seventeenth century, where you have like classical music festivals
and like the type of like exclusivity right where like
when in the seventeenth century when like classical music just
basically ate Europe and music festivals originally were like supposed
(14:15):
to be a gathering where people could, like what you think,
gather and celebrate music.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
However, here's where it starts coming into focus.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
The wealthcap was widening across Europe, so festivals gradually became
kind of like how they are where they're a little
bit exclusive, catering primarily to more higher educated upper class.
And the shift became apparent as events became more exclusive
and had increasingly restricted access. This is from ndlbeast dot com.
(14:47):
They have a whole section on like the history of
music festivals. One could argue, like this like the prototype
of like the VIP section. You know, I'm saying, like,
you know, you can get the pit tickets or you
can stand outside with the pores and just listen from
the outside. So this trend kind of continued for centuries
where like a lead class. I think almost like was
(15:08):
the beginning of the breaking of music in general. They
were control the access to culture. I have a friend
that wrote a book called Don't Be Precious. Now, me
and this friend differ in a lot of ways, but
he's just a punk rock dude, and his approach to
making art is like, you can't have this like restricting access,
(15:33):
right because it becomes it just like upper class art
is this creation of the leisure class, because one they
have the patron to pay for them to be able
to sit down and contemplate the stars, like you got
all precious about it, you feel me. So some of
that has to do with again, the wealth gap. So
when you restrict access to hearing music, it draws deeper
(15:56):
into the divides between like the educated upper class and
then the traveling folk musicians who performed for the commoners.
And that's like this stuff you see on you know,
corny little movies. Then the world wars come, right, and
there's like a music revival, right. So when the First
World War broke out, obviously change of lifestyle meaning everything
(16:19):
went to like you know, war effort. So this is
a really interesting quote. It says, I'm the same MDL beast.
As society focused on wartime efforts and staying safe, the
exclusivity of music festivals to the upper class disappeared. In
a turn of events, the working class population was now
turning to music more than ever. Jazz and folk emerged
(16:42):
as popular genres right to avoid the scrutiny of the elite.
Groups of musicians with similar tastes would gathering diede bars
and underground clubs. By the time the war had ended,
jazz has cemented itself as the genre of the era.
So now we're talking Harlem Renaissance, juke joints, and the
(17:02):
emergence of like again this where black people come in
a lot of times the role that just the all
out anti black racism has unintentionally because of it, created
some of the most dopest things, some of the most
(17:23):
dopest American experiences. Or I just read up on how
with HBCUs which are historic black colleges that now white
people trying to attend. They like your school of fund well,
because we wasn't allowed it yours anyway, So let me continue. So,
(17:43):
World War two played a pivotal role in creating the
Newport Folk Festival, organized by Lewis and Elaine Lauryland, a
couple met during World War Two and came together to
revolutionized Rhode Island's music artistic community by promoting jazz with
the foundation in as in blues, in country and pop music.
They expanded to attract over eleven thousand people in nineteen
(18:07):
fifty four. Then the sixties the birth of the modern
music festival. Right obviously Woodstock, which was the invention Monterey
International Pop Music Festival. This is the rock festival as
we know it, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin who it was
the place to be a cultural experience as we know it.
(18:29):
Again is that then you got like the Berlin Wall
in the music revolution. This is where festivals become political
and cultural. They become a statement and a big one
was in the nineties when they did the Berlin Wall
tearing Down Music Festival, which was an amazing thing, right
(18:50):
where underground stations, power plants, World War Two bunkers and
abandoned buildings all started to serve as makeshift concert halls.
This is why Europe became such a place for music festivals.
It became a sign of freedom and solidarity. And then
the music festival took a shit. They just died in
(19:13):
the nineties after this all can be explained in when
they tried to redo Woodstock just a shit show with
like Limp Biscuit.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
And all them you a shit show.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
There's a documentary on Netflix about the absolute disaster that
that new Woodstock was, y'all. I'm talking like y'all thought
Astro World was bad where them kids was raising so
much and people die. You talking about understaffed. Y'all think
Firefest was a disaster, my nigger, Well, nah, I don't
(19:50):
think anything was worse than firefests so far a good thing.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
It didn't happen like y'all remember Firefest?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Oh lord, honestly, I can't believe I made it almost
twenty minutes into this and then mentioned Firefest because it
is the perfect example of what went wrong in the
music festival world. Because, like I said, this disaster in
the nineties to two thousands, if you were able to
survive like I said earlier, like the Bonnarous Coachella's Austin
(20:21):
City limits, if you were able to survive Lollapalooza, then
you came out the other end and became the go
to places.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, tell your ride for folk music.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
You became the go to places that if you were
going to try to have a career.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
As an artist, you have to play one of these festivals.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
No matter how much money you don't make at these things,
you have to do it because this is where not
only do you get the necessary co sign, you also
get discovered. Like as far as fans like, you make
new fans, you se merge people, walk away with the
T shirt. You're on this T shirt that says Bonnarou
twenty twenty one, and your name is so like even
(21:02):
if you're way down on the bottom, Grab your little screenshots,
take your little Instagram photos, because now you're in the game.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And the game it.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Was, which leads us to what went wrong because this
was not only a money making endeavor. This was a
money making endeavor in twenty fourteen, are y'all ready for this?
I don't think you ready for this? In the boom years,
according to an analysis done by a Finance Buzz, in
(21:32):
twenty fourteen, general emission prices for major and music festivals
increased by fifty five percent that outpaced just inflation period,
y'all jacked up the price. So listen, So if your
ja rule head ass, of course I'm gonna build a festival.
You're looking at Burning Man, You're looking at Bonnarou, You're
(21:53):
looking at all these things.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
You're like, bro, let's just get an island and make
a festival. There's so much money to be made.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
But you know what, capitalism being capitalism, it's gonna keep capitalism.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Let's talk about what killed the festival.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh oh, oh, oh, you see, I just did my
own fade out and fade in music. Y'all see that. No,
(22:30):
don't ask me what note that was. So what killed
the festival? There one number of things. First of all, yo,
ask for not going I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
We're not blaming the victims here. Some of these answers
are pretty obvious, like again, you know astra World like,
(22:50):
but astral World is just a good picture of everything
that went wrong in the concept of a music festival.
So the first problem is, yeah, capitalism, sometimes you are
led to believe that what is will always be right.
That's what a stable economy lulls you into believing. But
(23:12):
anybody that knows how money works, it's booms and busts,
the bubble will pop, and how a bubble pops is
almost always our own fault in this sense, the housing bubble,
you know of two thousand and eight when your mama
and him lost their house because the reality was they
shouldn't have never got that loan in the first place.
(23:32):
These people knew good and well that you was not
able to keep up with that mortgage. But we were
selling too many houses. It was going too good. So
the thing was for almost the you know, almost a decade,
you couldn't make enough festivals. The industry couldn't keep up
with the demand. And yo, this the blog error. This
(23:53):
the two Doe Boys. Yeah, Pitchfork like this the blog error.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
You know what I'm saying. When Fader was like a
thing that you would want to go soon.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So like it all kind of worked together around this
time before all these spots got bought out hip hop DX,
like all these pages got bought out. Like I said before,
it was like this boom in twenty fourteen of a
trillion festivals that started happening. Now what happened was ticket prices.
This's the first one. We're making so much money. You realize, Dang,
(24:24):
if I charge one hundred, I bet you I could
charge to hundred if I charged doing it, I bet
you I could charge foe hundred because if you charge
foe hun and then I could argue I'm getting bigger acts.
So in the boom years, according to this analysis by Finance,
buzz ticket prices since twenty fourteen for most music festivals
increased by fifty five percent. Like that's super outpacing even
(24:48):
inflation in the same time period. This isn't like cost
the living type shit type beat.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
No oh, I'm raping y'all.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Do you know that Burning Man cost five hundred and
seventy five dollars to go to If you was going,
you was probably gonna make some sort of like art
installation to destroy you doing that all your own money,
which meant what.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Same thing happened in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
It just becomes a place for the elite because can't
nobody else afford to go. You know what else happened
to a lot of festivals is corporation's bottom. You know
who bought complex BuzzFeed and you know who bought it
from buzzfeedn't work.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Nt WRK, It's an investment firm.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
You know who owns the Pitchfork Festival, Condy nast a
media company. They bought the blog and folded it into GQ.
It's just a corporation. Capitalism. Capitalism broke the festivals under
the banner of capitalism, not so much the cost of
the ticket and the soaring cost of living.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
It also costs too much to make the festival.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
To John Roston, he's the CEO that AIF, the Independent
Association of Festivals.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
He says, the toilet higher, I just need to buy
porter potties.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
In twenty twenty one was twenty eight thousand dollars for
the exact same amount of toilets at twenty twenty four
is fifty four thousand dollars. That's just the toilets. You
know what happened at Astro World. He ain't have enough security.
It costs so much you honestly cannot afford to put
(26:35):
together a festival that will be alluring enough to consumers
to justify spending that much money. So what do you get?
A gang of corporate sponsors? And you know what a
gang of corporate sponsors at a music festival is whack.
It's a horrible ass experience because you're just watching a
(26:55):
gang of commercials. Sometimes it just be labels who be
putting on these artists that they trying to bring, and
then the artists be trash. They don't be trash because
they trash. They be trash because they're not ready for
this size stage. They ain't put in the work. They
didn't do the Gurney, Illinois experience that I think I've
told before. What is the most terrifying experience I've ever
(27:16):
had on tour? You don't had him experiences. You ain't
played shows when it's more people at the bar, or
there's more people that work there then come to see you.
You're not ready for no festival stage, so it's just
not fun for the concer. So I'm not gonna buy it.
You can't justify this price. If I'm gonna spend that
much money, I need to really, really, really really.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Like this band. This need to be my favorite artist.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I'm not finna stand around twelve hours pay this much
money to really only see one act I like.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
That don't make no damn sense.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
And we'll talk about why they only like that one
artist a little bit later, So remember this point I'm making.
The second and most obvious one is COVID, which leads
into the third and fourth, you had to cancel stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Nobody knew this was coming. Like the el's companies took.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I canceled a tour. Not only I canceled a tour,
I released the poetry book that I couldn't tour. I
mean I personally lost tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds
of thousands of dollars in touring revenue, in book sales,
in merch sales, and all of it. Like, I lost
so much because you just had to, and I'm still
(28:26):
trying to get that money back. A lot of festivals
just have never been able to make their money back
from what they lost, so there's not enough money now. Obviously,
when the pandemic ended, there was a lot of pent up.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Energy to be like, I need to go outside.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
But that's because me and you didn't spend two years
of our high school experience, our two first years of
college stuck at home. Remember that's the time when you
get the taste to go outside, when you start finding
your drinking buddies, yo outside friends, your music friends. You
have to remember those years, dude, did Those years are
(29:02):
when you're discovering All research says it's like your taste
in music happens in those years. Right, If I were
to ask you what your favorite area of music, most
likely it's not always, but most likely it was like
the music you listened to in the eleventh grade, it's
probably your favorite era. Whatever you was listening to the
n is probably still your favorite era. Now, obviously that's
(29:26):
not true for everybody. But hey, if you were seventeen
you were discovering new music, you want to go to
like the Cornerhouse of Blues, right, you know this is
obviously I'm California centric.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
You wanted to hit the Glasshouse. Man?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Could you just heard about this new band? Little stings
like that, the Dragonfly, Whiskey of Go Go, the Viper Room,
all these like smaller spots that when for us out
of La these were like rights a passage. This is
how you get to say I saw them win. I
knew who Will I Am was for the Black Eyed
Peas because I saw him at the Little Temple which
is now called the Virgil when he did a beat battle.
(29:59):
They were at the corner, you know what I'm saying,
And it was fun. I knew Foster of the people.
They're in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
You would just drive down like just at the gas
lamp like Leon bridges Hell. He opened for us. You
know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Again, like we said in the earlier these these bands
that you was passionate about. You was seventeen with your
little Emo hare swooped over your eyes this or you
was crying over you understand what I'm saying, Like hugging
onto your little iPad, you know, doing that MySpace picture
when you looking down. You know it's the white people
think like this is when you went to go see them.
If that era for you was a pandemic, you didn't
(30:37):
acquire a taste for going out like that.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You saw concerts inside a fortnite.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
So what I'm saying is one of the biggest things
about gen Z is they don't go out.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
It's just it's just the reality. Not only do it
ain't got no money.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
They ain't got no money because again inflation and fine,
the cost of living is insane. But look it, gen
Z don't drink like we used to drink. They do
fewer drugs, they have less sex. Part of that is
because one they hella anxious and.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I don't blame them.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
I'm looking at my daughter now and I'm like, I'm sorry, baby,
you probably not gonna buy no house ever. I don't
even know when you're gonna move out. I don't know
what to tell you. I'm not mad. I ain't gonna
push you out of this house, because where you're gonna go,
you're gonna get seven roommates.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
They do fewer drugs, they drink less, and they don't
go nowhere because one, they anxious as hell. They nervous
around being around that many people. And if they are
gonna go out, if you ask them, the number one
thing they say is like, I ain't got nobody to
go with I mean I could go. I ain't got
nobody to go with you, cause you ain't got no friends.
You don't go nowhere, right. I've been looking at my
(31:51):
own child, like why you here?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Cuz, like don't you you're a go nowhere.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
She's starting to now, but listen, you gotta really really,
really really.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Really want to see this person that you're going to see.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
She bought Billie Eilis tickets in February the concert next month.
She decided, if I'm gonna spend this money this one,
I'm gonna spend it on right, because it's.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Worth her money.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
She loves them, she loves her, she got the album,
she went to the listening party, She's like, this is
who I'm gonna go see. They don't look and see
who's playing, or just pull up at adult music spot
and just be like, oh, one, who's playing. I'm gonna
discover new music. Now that don't happen. You can't put
on no festival if people ain't willing to come, which
leads me to one of the other problems they did,
which is the music industry itself. It is shocked themselves
(32:40):
in the foot because the big dogs, just like I
said happened in the seventeen hundreds, are doing fine. If
Live Nation and ticket Master own every venue, they only
gonna put the artists that they won't own their it
costs too much.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
So they're like, I understand what's going on with y'all festivals.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I know we doing all right, because if you are
an industry artist with the machine behind you, number one,
you don't need a festival.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
You booked the Greek theater yourself.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Why would I allow myself as an artist for you
to pay me?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Guess who turned down Coachella next year? Rihanna and Kendrick.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Why would either of them play that when they know
they can be the only artist and sell just as
many tickets. Kendrick played Staples. I'm calling his Staples because
I'm from LA. I know it's just a corporation. He
played Staples four nights in a row where the Lakers played,
but that was after doing four nights at the Honda
Center in Orange County. These are eight Southern California shows,
(33:48):
sold them all out. Why the hell would I give
that money to Coachella when I could do it myself.
Live Nation already taking a huge ass cut. Ticketmaster already
taking a huge ass cut. Scalper's already taking a huge
ass cut. There's no reason for me to give my
time and my ticket draw to you when they can
all go to myself. You did this to yourself music
(34:11):
industry by locking out all the small venues. You know
what else the music industry did to itself streaming the
algorithm that also killed the festival. You know why, because
you're fed the same music. Algorithm says you like this,
you probably don't like that, which means.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
We know all people be like music all sound the same, because.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
It does because The goal is to play music that
feeds the algorithm. You create music that gets your streaming
numbers up. This is the point I was making earlier.
While you like, I don't know nobody else on this thing,
and I'm only really concerned about the headliner. This is
the point I was making earlier. Algorithm, you create music
that works on TikTok. So music has this formula. They
(34:55):
did the same thing with coffee shops. You know why
coffee shops look like brutaliss mid century, all of them Instagram.
We're all looking at the same aesthetic. So therefore all
coffee shops look the same. The same thing happened with
music the algorithm. So you have these entire very specific niches.
(35:17):
But can everyone in your weird niche. Are there thirty
artists in your very weird niche that can bring ten
thousand people out to a field? No, because there's only
forty of y'all that like this music that's online streaming.
There's no human editorial, there's no DJ that's saying, yo, dude, long,
(35:39):
look at this.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
No, look at this.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
You're stuck to doing it yourself, and hopefully you can
climb out your algorithm, right J McDonald says, a genre
unfocused festival poster lineup starts to just look like a
playlist that has been made and personalized for somebody else. Okay,
you want to do a genre specific one, let's just say, okay,
kpop fly on and acts from Korea? How much you're
(36:02):
gonna sell all these tickets for? How many k pop
acts do you get?
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You don't book nobody local? Do you how much money
that would cost? Or you say I'm gonna do a
k pop day? All right?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So you do a three day festival. One day's k pop,
one day's EDM, one day's hip hop.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Uh, nobody's bout a three day pass.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
So one day might be trash And how do you
build it? What does the flyer look like? I don't
know half of these people. I ain't never even heard
of that. No single act can sell a festival, and
if you try to do a multi different act thing,
it's just gonna confuse the consumer. So if you're putting
on the festival, your only option is to just go big.
(36:41):
This has to do with money, So you are going
to overspend, right, because it's like, how are you gonna
get people here? You get Taylor Swift. Do you know
how much money you gotta offer somebody like a Taylor
Swift for her to give her performance to your festival
rather than just to do her own show.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
And the consumer says, again, is this worth my money?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I'm willing to throw this money at this big act
because that's what the Alcali, that's.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Who I know.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
They're not gonna risk no more because music discovery is
now algorithmic. You're not just gonna go pull up at
a spot and be like, who's this open or they're dope.
The industry did it to itself. You killed your own
performance market. And because Live Nation brought up all the
small venues where artists really get their chops and really
create fan bases and really you get to discover and
(37:32):
make connections with it, there's no places for them to play.
All that's left are the big industry artists and why
again would they give their ticket sales to a festival?
And lastly, climate change. It's hot as hell. The last
two burning bands poured rain and flooded. Before that, it
(37:54):
was like one hundred and twenty nine million degrees.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
It's hot.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
It's too hot to be out there like this climate y'all,
and enough water. It's hot as hell. It's hot as hell,
or it's floody. It's hot or it's floody. Ain't no
more nice days outside. I find the stand outside all day.
You crazy?
Speaker 4 (38:20):
You gonna make me pay extra for shade. It's an
extra one hundred dollars so I can have a humbrother.
I'm good. Just hold on, we're staying home. Staying home.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Okay, now again, let's rebuild the world. What can we
do better? That's in our control. So festivals might be done,
but it doesn't mean we don't still love music. If
you're a music lover, here are some suggestions I can
give you that would keep your favorite bands in the game.
(38:55):
The first is the easiest one for you, which of course,
is buying or streaming their music. If you're gonna stream,
here's the thing, dude, I'm not an old guy to
say that, like your release Radar or your New Music Friday,
that algorithmic playlist that's like customized just for you, it's great.
(39:15):
My request that I think would help is this. If
a song pops on and you dig it, save it
number one, and then too, go to the album, go
to that artist's page and give them a follow and
listen to the album. You heard the song, the song
was dope, and if it really resonate, I'm not begging
you to do something that you don't like, listen to
(39:35):
that album, you know the whole Like artists blowing up
on TikTok. That's why Universal was just like man tried
to dead all that, you know, So if the artist
blows up on TikTok, you you really like that, it's
not like yo, like go to that artist page, go
to their music like, you know.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Instead of just like shooting a video like that. Stuff's
short lived.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
If you're artists, like obviously you hope that one day
that happens, but that's not sustainable. You can't tour off that.
That's what happened to a lot of ours. Why I
Spice cancel half for tour dates is because there's not songs.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
There's TikTok audios. You feel me.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
That helps the artists know when they try to go
get a show that they can prove that, like, hey, listen,
these are listeners. When you go to my Spotify page,
we go to any Spotify page, the first number you
see is monthly listeners but that don't mean followers. I
have this weird upside down thing. Most people have more
monthly listeners than followers. I'm the opposite. I have three
(40:34):
times more followers than monthly listeners, which means these people
are going to be alerted when I drop music. Why
I have that is because I toured so hard. I
played every possible dumb, ugly venue I possibly could, like,
gotted out the mud, shook hands, stayed after, stayed at
(40:58):
the merch table, took pictures, got email addresses, got phone numbers,
came back, you know, signed everything. I would stay after
the show for an extra hour until everybody got their
picture and everybody got their stuff signed, hard fought so
(41:18):
that way, You're right, I'm not cranking out music that
feeds the algorithm.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
You're right. But when I drop an album, they no.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
So my request as the consumer is follow that artist
like close to the album. And secondly, the most obvious
one is like dude by merch. Oh my god, y'all,
I'm saying like merch has been the difference between car
insurance and not. For me, merch has been the difference
between can my daughter stay in her you know, dance
(41:49):
class her after school, like ballet class. Merch Like merch
is how we paid for our daughters. So during the pandemic,
hell merch it paid our rent because all he had. Now,
as an artist, you need to have dope merch.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
If your merch sucks, that I mean, it is what
it is. I can't ask you to, you know, purchase
something that's trash. Artists make dope merch. You know, I
have vinyl. Vinyl costs a lot, but you can go
to my website there's vinyl like that stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
Those make a difference.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
And then I'd also ask, like, if you really dig
an artist, this is on the artist's job to like
sign up for their newsletter, find out when they're touring,
and just and go to their shows. And when you
get there like another game. I think I told this
on the Politics podcast too, where it's like most of
the time as the artist, I keep the door like
(42:43):
meaning the ticket sales, and then the venue keeps the bar.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
So their thing is like, well, they're going to make
a ton of money on the bar.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
But that's how I get to come back is if
this venue says, oh, yeah, he brought you know, three
hundred people here, they respected my staff, they bought drink
and me as an artist, my team, I'd be silly
on stage, but we're very, very professional. I take my
reputation very serious. We make sure that like the talent buyer,
(43:12):
the venues, everybody taken care of.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
We're not yelling at the sound man. You know, we
keep a clean green room.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Like.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Those are things you could do as an artist, but
as a consumer, like I know the algorithm's fighting against you,
but like, if you really like a group, go out
of your way, even if it's on the discovery things. Again,
the big people is easy. Beyonce's tickets are gonna come
find you. You ain't gotta go find them. But Johnny
Swim but the hot shakes, right, that's what they call
(43:38):
go find them because at the end of the day,
it's your presence. If you're gonna stay in music, you
have to get butts in seats. Is this for us
to save music festivals? I don't care they did that
to themselves. I'm just trying to save live music because truly, truly,
there is nothing like it.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Oh oh oh oh oh oh, it could happen.
Speaker 7 (44:08):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts,
from cool Zone Media. Visit our website folzonmedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find
sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening.
Als media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
If Robert can do his a tonal shreeks, then I
can sing off key yo, I'm back. Help me all
up in your feed. Wast these rap gus get all
up in your feed. That's a wu tang reference again
to the Black delegation, shout out y'all showing up on
the in the subreddit. You feel me, Black folks showing
up and showing out. I appreciate y'all.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I was wrong. It's more than five of us. I
shout out to you, man. I love y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thanks for showing up, and shout out all the Latinos
who tapped into and le puez. Hey gontodo MI hint
ben at gay when valivo listen.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
We gotta really invite our Latino brothers and sisters, our
Theos and diaz and also our Asian black people, the
penoise and Penis, our Athes and Quias.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
You're all a part of our delegation here, all of
our USO. We love y'all.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
The whole diaspora of people who seizon their chicken and
wash their legs. I love y'all, And to this whole
delegation once we add it all together is about twenty
of us to you. I say, y'all want something from
the gas station. I got you so today. I don't
want to ruin your breakfast. I don't want to ruin
your coffee. I'm just gonna ruin your music. This is
(01:23):
about the death of the music festival. It already happened
here all right now, y'all know I'll be playing. I'm
playing about all this like I'm only talking to the
melanated folks. Y'all.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Y'all know I'm playing, right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean, this is why while I slowly wink at
the brown folk, I'm just playing, y'all. I'm sorry, I'm
messing around. It's called opening. You know, you guys got
a great sit to humor here. All right, let's get
to it. Festivals like, am I right? You know, if
you're anywhere within a five to ten mile radius of
my age, I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Festivals is like these are like a write of passage.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
You know, I am not only a festival goer, but
a festival performer and as an artist. It was like
festivals were kind of in a lot of ways how
I marked the years. There were people that I really
only saw like once a year, when I was at
that festival, whether it was other acts, other bands, or
even a lot of times the volunteers or the people
that like put the event together, like you believe it
(02:25):
or not, you kind of make friends, you know, and
he's again, these are people You're like, Dang, I can't
believe it was a whole year, you know, And it
was a good way to make sure as an artist
that you were making new music and had something new
to perform. Oh, and make sure you had some new
merch because you know, if you played your cards right,
if you've listened to my show, I've talked a lot about, like,
you know, the science of festivals and as a performer
(02:46):
of like this could either be a complete waste of
time and money if you're on at like the main
stage at like twelve noon when it's like a trillion
degrees outside, you know, but if you can get that
right as the sun set, like if you're not the headliner,
if you could get that right at sunset, right where
the sun just breaks the horizon line coming down that.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
That golden hour set.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
The crowd isn't shitfaced yet, you know, they're at the
top of their molly.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
You feel you're riding the high.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It is just settled in or whatever drugs that these
people are on, they've kind of just settled in right there.
They're relaxed, they're willing to sing along. Nobody's getting trample jet.
It's not like the frenzy that kind of happens at
the headliner situation, where like somebody might die. Shout out,
astro world. I say that not as a joke. I'm
(03:37):
saying things can go wrong, but oh the experience. Man, Like,
I don't know how old you are, and obviously you
can't answer me. Do you remember the last like big
festival you went to, you know, back when your knees
were good and it was okay for you to stand
for twelve hours And there's somebody you know, having sexual
intercourse in the porter potty. You know, you're stepping over
barf right, and you just paid thirty dollars for a
(04:00):
bottle of water, you know that you could stuff into
your clear backpack because you weren't allowed to bring anything
else in there. But man, that's probably a euphoria, especially
if it's a group or a band that you really
like that you saved up all year to go see.
You know, some people were like festival operas, Like that's
their thing. They spend their summer going to music festivals.
Since twenty twelve up to twenty fourteen, like the music
(04:22):
fest has been guys, we've.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Kind of been on borrow time.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
We've we lived through a music festival renaissance. According to NPR,
since twenty thirteen, everything sold out, the four mega giants, right, so, Coachello, Bataru,
Lolla Palooza in Chicago, Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas.
It was like this never ending flow of amazing, amazing events,
(04:50):
and you know what, they were kind of affordable. In
the next five years, you had things taken forth like
Pitchfork in Chicago, Hangout Music Festival on the Beach and
the Gulf Shore outside Lands, Bali Music, Mount Oasis, Electronic Music.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Festival, Forecastle Festival. Right, and I'm even.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Gonna add in this, before all this for hip hop stuff, dude,
we had rock the bells. Like we lived in a
time where you could see all of your favorite artists
in the most epic locations. You'd see people who if
you were to try to buy their tour ticket, it
would cost the same amount if they were headlining the
(05:29):
thing but you could see all your favorite acts. Part
of this was because we listened to radio, you were
exposed to more things and it was probably the fun
part about a lot of times about music festival is
because you probably saw that act, your favorite band, your
favorite rapper, you saw them at a hole in the
wall five years ago, which was like ten bucks to
(05:50):
get in, and you might have snuck in or got
on the list because you knew somebody that knew the DJ.
And now you're like, I followed this crew from when
they were like playing a whole in a wall with
ten people, where there was more staff at the bar
than on this and now you're like, dude, you feel
like you were a part of their evolution. Like you
saw Chance at the Subterranean, Now he's headline at Bonaru.
(06:13):
What a feeling you're part of the story. Well, that's
probably a relic of the past, and let's talk about it.
So festivals for most of the last decade have been
everywhere like whatever type of music you like, whatever subgenre,
whatever part of the world you want to go to,
there's a music festival that you can show up at. Now,
(06:34):
in twenty twenty four, more than half of them across
the world were canceled.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I lost count on this page.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I'm about to read to y'all from Musicfestival Wizard dot Com.
Festival's canceled so far in twenty twenty four. Okay you
ready for this? Shindig twenty twenty four, Melt twenty twenty four,
Sideways Festival, No Stock Field, Maneuvers, Tower z The Quintinin
Big Slap, Electric Zoo Peach twenty twenty four. All the
Music Festival Life Is Beautiful Festival, Country Thunder Florida, Swanee
(07:04):
Roots Festival, edc China, Lucidity Festival in Santa Barbara, Desert
Days in Lake Paris, Pinefest in the UK, Good Vibes
Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sierra Nevada World Music Festival
in Booneville, El Dorado Music Festival in the UK, Sudden
Little Thrills in Pittsburgh, Big Ridge Rock Fest in Virginia,
(07:26):
Lollapalooza Paris Music Midtown Atlanta, Lovers and Friends Fest in
Las Vegas, which I was really sad about. Riverside Festival,
Glasgow in where Glasgow, Soul Bloom Sacramento tw Classic twenty
twenty four, in Belgium, Kaylamijas in Kaylamijas, Spain, Caldoora music
festival in Queensland, Made An America Festival Philadelphia, Oblivion Access
(07:51):
Austin Texas, Meadows in the Mountains twenty twenty four in Bulgaria,
Imagine Festival in Rome, Georgia, Splendor on the Grass in
Byron By Australia, Body and Soul Festival in Ireland, Moon
Rose Festival. I'm tired of I'm not even done yet,
I'm not even halfway through this thing.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Festivals died in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Digital News reports that sixty festivals in the UK alone canceled.
Ashley King wrote this article on August twenty third, twenty
twenty four, for Digital Music News, and in that she
says the United Kingdom has lost one hundred and ninety
two music festivals since twenty nineteen, according to the Association
of Independent Festivals the AIF, which is a not for
(08:34):
profit trade festival association that represents the interest of over
two hundred independent UK music festivals that range from five
hundred to eighty thousand people. The AIF estimates that the
UK lost ninety six events during the COVID pandemic thirty
six festivals and in twenty twenty three, more than sixty
to date in twenty twenty four. That brings the total
(08:55):
number of festival closures either due to cancelation or post
pullment up to one hundred and ninety two since twenty nineteen,
one hundred and ninety two festivals. Some may argue that, well, damn,
you shouldn't have had that many festivals, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and
of course the infamous burning Man with the most on
(09:19):
brand people that go that call themselves burners. Now, I
don't want to sit here and make fun of you burners,
because I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
A lot of y'all listen to this show number one
and number two.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I don't know if there's anybody more free, anybody more
comfortable in their own skin.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
This might sound like a joke, Okay, I'm dead serious.
It's like the white guy with dreadlocks. I mean, white
people with dreads are just most of the time, Okay,
Like this may sound like a joke, I'm deadly serious.
They be so okay with themselves and will do whatever
they got to do to continue to stay present and
(09:58):
be cool with themselves, no notes. It's the guy doing
hypostatic breath work, freestyling for way too long in the
dig redoce section. You know what I'm saying, Like he's
super okay with himself anyway. Burning Man for the first
time since twenty eleven, did not sell out for the
first time, And the tickets are usually released in tears
(10:20):
and some go on sale in the beginning of the year,
and then this part I'm getting from the Guardian, but
the main starting in April, right, which typically gets snapped
up in minutes, like Burning Man sells out in minutes.
Seventy three thousand people are able to attend Burning Man,
but this first time since twenty eleven, they did not
sell out. Coachella saying they saw a fifteen percent decline
(10:45):
in tickets. It's the biggest festival in North America. Coachella
is fifteen percent ticket decline. Festivals were a way for
you to discover new music, to meet new friends.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
It's like camp for like your twenties.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
You know, you get to wear your dumb ass outfits, right,
you get to stand out in the sun, you get
to drink, you get to day drink, and you get
to just lose your mind for a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
This might be the end, the endling.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
You may have attended your last music festival as we
know it. So the question is why who killed the
music festival? Why is the festival not festiving it? Why
is it not festive? Why can't y'all sell no tickets?
Do we not like music anymore? Do you like music?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Still? I thought, I still like? Do you like music? Still?
What the hell happened in y'all?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Oh? Oh oh oh oh?
Speaker 4 (11:47):
We'd back back back back, yack back uh erh.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
To understand the future as to what the hell happened,
we have to ask ourselves how we even.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Got here such a nerd I am.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I don't think I need to tell you what a
music festival is, because I mean, I think you know
what it is. It's an incredibly overpriced concert that features
maybe four groups that you like, where you are going
to stand outdoors somewhere brave the weather day, drink and
then get to lose your mind for the last like
(12:25):
three hours and just really enjoy, you know, a moment
that you'll really never forget. Depending on how nasty and
ratchet you are, how outside you are, you might look up.
You know what I'm saying, I don't. Look, it's none
of my business. I suggest you don't. That's just me
being an old head. But either way, man, they're a
great time. But please understand that festivals, music festivals go
(12:47):
like back to get this, five eighty two b C.
At least according to white people's history, because you know,
silly you, nothing happened anywhere else.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Except for Europe.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That was music festivals in Africa, Central South America, Asia,
no nowhere else.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
It don't.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
History started in Greece. We were too busy building pyramids.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
Right anyway, I'm gonna lead out put oh, but every
cracking you up. They'd be like the first music festival
on record in ancient Greece during the Pytheon Games, which
is fine, it's it's fine, it's fine, but understand, at
the way the world just the only one.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That ever happened anyway, So five eighty two BC, right,
And like the Olympic Games, the Pytheon Games took place
every four years and included poetry reading, a speech, right,
and other musical game like competitions. People gathered to enjoy,
like hymns and instruments instrumental performances at the Apollo at
(13:54):
the Apollo I'm So Black dedicated to Apollo, which was
the god of arts and music. Now fast forward to
the seventeenth century, where you have like classical music festivals
and like the type of like exclusivity right where like
when in the seventeenth century when like classical music just
basically ate Europe and music festivals originally were like supposed
(14:15):
to be a gathering where people could, like what you think,
gather and celebrate music.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
However, here's where it starts coming into focus.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
The wealthcap was widening across Europe, so festivals gradually became
kind of like how they are where they're a little
bit exclusive, catering primarily to more higher educated upper class.
And the shift became apparent as events became more exclusive
and had increasingly restricted access. This is from ndlbeast dot com.
(14:47):
They have a whole section on like the history of
music festivals. One could argue, like this like the prototype
of like the VIP section. You know, I'm saying, like,
you know, you can get the pit tickets or you
can stand outside with the pores and just listen from
the outside. So this trend kind of continued for centuries
where like a lead class. I think almost like was
(15:08):
the beginning of the breaking of music in general. They
were control the access to culture. I have a friend
that wrote a book called Don't Be Precious. Now, me
and this friend differ in a lot of ways, but
he's just a punk rock dude, and his approach to
making art is like, you can't have this like restricting access,
(15:33):
right because it becomes it just like upper class art
is this creation of the leisure class, because one they
have the patron to pay for them to be able
to sit down and contemplate the stars, like you got
all precious about it, you feel me. So some of
that has to do with again, the wealth gap. So
when you restrict access to hearing music, it draws deeper
(15:56):
into the divides between like the educated upper class and
then the traveling folk musicians who performed for the commoners.
And that's like this stuff you see on you know,
corny little movies. Then the world wars come, right, and
there's like a music revival, right. So when the First
World War broke out, obviously change of lifestyle meaning everything
(16:19):
went to like you know, war effort. So this is
a really interesting quote. It says, I'm the same MDL beast.
As society focused on wartime efforts and staying safe, the
exclusivity of music festivals to the upper class disappeared. In
a turn of events, the working class population was now
turning to music more than ever. Jazz and folk emerged
(16:42):
as popular genres right to avoid the scrutiny of the elite.
Groups of musicians with similar tastes would gathering diede bars
and underground clubs. By the time the war had ended,
jazz has cemented itself as the genre of the era.
So now we're talking Harlem Renaissance, juke joints, and the
(17:02):
emergence of like again this where black people come in
a lot of times the role that just the all
out anti black racism has unintentionally because of it, created
some of the most dopest things, some of the most
(17:23):
dopest American experiences. Or I just read up on how
with HBCUs which are historic black colleges that now white
people trying to attend. They like your school of fund well,
because we wasn't allowed it yours anyway, So let me continue. So,
(17:43):
World War two played a pivotal role in creating the
Newport Folk Festival, organized by Lewis and Elaine Lauryland, a
couple met during World War Two and came together to
revolutionized Rhode Island's music artistic community by promoting jazz with
the foundation in as in blues, in country and pop music.
They expanded to attract over eleven thousand people in nineteen
(18:07):
fifty four. Then the sixties the birth of the modern
music festival. Right obviously Woodstock, which was the invention Monterey
International Pop Music Festival. This is the rock festival as
we know it, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin who it was
the place to be a cultural experience as we know it.
(18:29):
Again is that then you got like the Berlin Wall
in the music revolution. This is where festivals become political
and cultural. They become a statement and a big one
was in the nineties when they did the Berlin Wall
tearing Down Music Festival, which was an amazing thing, right
(18:50):
where underground stations, power plants, World War Two bunkers and
abandoned buildings all started to serve as makeshift concert halls.
This is why Europe became such a place for music festivals.
It became a sign of freedom and solidarity. And then
the music festival took a shit. They just died in
(19:13):
the nineties after this all can be explained in when
they tried to redo Woodstock just a shit show with
like Limp Biscuit.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
And all them you a shit show.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
There's a documentary on Netflix about the absolute disaster that
that new Woodstock was, y'all. I'm talking like y'all thought
Astro World was bad where them kids was raising so
much and people die. You talking about understaffed. Y'all think
Firefest was a disaster, my nigger, Well, nah, I don't
(19:50):
think anything was worse than firefests so far a good thing.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
It didn't happen like y'all remember Firefest?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Oh lord, honestly, I can't believe I made it almost
twenty minutes into this and then mentioned Firefest because it
is the perfect example of what went wrong in the
music festival world. Because, like I said, this disaster in
the nineties to two thousands, if you were able to
survive like I said earlier, like the Bonnarous Coachella's Austin
(20:21):
City limits, if you were able to survive Lollapalooza, then
you came out the other end and became the go
to places.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, tell your ride for folk music.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
You became the go to places that if you were
going to try to have a career.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
As an artist, you have to play one of these festivals.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
No matter how much money you don't make at these things,
you have to do it because this is where not
only do you get the necessary co sign, you also
get discovered. Like as far as fans like, you make
new fans, you se merge people, walk away with the
T shirt. You're on this T shirt that says Bonnarou
twenty twenty one, and your name is so like even
(21:02):
if you're way down on the bottom, Grab your little screenshots,
take your little Instagram photos, because now you're in the game.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And the game it.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Was, which leads us to what went wrong because this
was not only a money making endeavor. This was a
money making endeavor in twenty fourteen, are y'all ready for this?
I don't think you ready for this? In the boom years,
according to an analysis done by a Finance Buzz, in
(21:32):
twenty fourteen, general emission prices for major and music festivals
increased by fifty five percent that outpaced just inflation period,
y'all jacked up the price. So listen, So if your
ja rule head ass, of course I'm gonna build a festival.
You're looking at Burning Man, You're looking at Bonnarou, You're
(21:53):
looking at all these things.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
You're like, bro, let's just get an island and make
a festival. There's so much money to be made.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
But you know what, capitalism being capitalism, it's gonna keep capitalism.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Let's talk about what killed the festival.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh oh, oh, oh, you see, I just did my
own fade out and fade in music. Y'all see that. No,
(22:30):
don't ask me what note that was. So what killed
the festival? There one number of things. First of all, yo,
ask for not going I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
We're not blaming the victims here. Some of these answers
are pretty obvious, like again, you know astra World like,
(22:50):
but astral World is just a good picture of everything
that went wrong in the concept of a music festival.
So the first problem is, yeah, capitalism, sometimes you are
led to believe that what is will always be right.
That's what a stable economy lulls you into believing. But
(23:12):
anybody that knows how money works, it's booms and busts,
the bubble will pop, and how a bubble pops is
almost always our own fault in this sense, the housing bubble,
you know of two thousand and eight when your mama
and him lost their house because the reality was they
shouldn't have never got that loan in the first place.
(23:32):
These people knew good and well that you was not
able to keep up with that mortgage. But we were
selling too many houses. It was going too good. So
the thing was for almost the you know, almost a decade,
you couldn't make enough festivals. The industry couldn't keep up
with the demand. And yo, this the blog error. This
(23:53):
the two Doe Boys. Yeah, Pitchfork like this the blog error.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
You know what I'm saying. When Fader was like a
thing that you would want to go soon.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So like it all kind of worked together around this
time before all these spots got bought out hip hop DX,
like all these pages got bought out. Like I said before,
it was like this boom in twenty fourteen of a
trillion festivals that started happening. Now what happened was ticket prices.
This's the first one. We're making so much money. You realize, Dang,
(24:24):
if I charge one hundred, I bet you I could
charge to hundred if I charged doing it, I bet
you I could charge foe hundred because if you charge
foe hun and then I could argue I'm getting bigger acts.
So in the boom years, according to this analysis by Finance,
buzz ticket prices since twenty fourteen for most music festivals
increased by fifty five percent. Like that's super outpacing even
(24:48):
inflation in the same time period. This isn't like cost
the living type shit type beat.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
No oh, I'm raping y'all.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Do you know that Burning Man cost five hundred and
seventy five dollars to go to If you was going,
you was probably gonna make some sort of like art
installation to destroy you doing that all your own money,
which meant what.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Same thing happened in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
It just becomes a place for the elite because can't
nobody else afford to go. You know what else happened
to a lot of festivals is corporation's bottom. You know
who bought complex BuzzFeed and you know who bought it
from buzzfeedn't work.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Nt WRK, It's an investment firm.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
You know who owns the Pitchfork Festival, Condy nast a
media company. They bought the blog and folded it into GQ.
It's just a corporation. Capitalism. Capitalism broke the festivals under
the banner of capitalism, not so much the cost of
the ticket and the soaring cost of living.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
It also costs too much to make the festival.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
To John Roston, he's the CEO that AIF, the Independent
Association of Festivals.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
He says, the toilet higher, I just need to buy
porter potties.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
In twenty twenty one was twenty eight thousand dollars for
the exact same amount of toilets at twenty twenty four
is fifty four thousand dollars. That's just the toilets. You
know what happened at Astro World. He ain't have enough security.
It costs so much you honestly cannot afford to put
(26:35):
together a festival that will be alluring enough to consumers
to justify spending that much money. So what do you get?
A gang of corporate sponsors? And you know what a
gang of corporate sponsors at a music festival is whack.
It's a horrible ass experience because you're just watching a
(26:55):
gang of commercials. Sometimes it just be labels who be
putting on these artists that they trying to bring, and
then the artists be trash. They don't be trash because
they trash. They be trash because they're not ready for
this size stage. They ain't put in the work. They
didn't do the Gurney, Illinois experience that I think I've
told before. What is the most terrifying experience I've ever
(27:16):
had on tour? You don't had him experiences. You ain't
played shows when it's more people at the bar, or
there's more people that work there then come to see you.
You're not ready for no festival stage, so it's just
not fun for the concer. So I'm not gonna buy it.
You can't justify this price. If I'm gonna spend that
much money, I need to really, really, really really.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Like this band. This need to be my favorite artist.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I'm not finna stand around twelve hours pay this much
money to really only see one act I like.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
That don't make no damn sense.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
And we'll talk about why they only like that one
artist a little bit later, So remember this point I'm making.
The second and most obvious one is COVID, which leads
into the third and fourth, you had to cancel stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Nobody knew this was coming. Like the el's companies took.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I canceled a tour. Not only I canceled a tour,
I released the poetry book that I couldn't tour. I
mean I personally lost tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds
of thousands of dollars in touring revenue, in book sales,
in merch sales, and all of it. Like, I lost
so much because you just had to, and I'm still
(28:26):
trying to get that money back. A lot of festivals
just have never been able to make their money back
from what they lost, so there's not enough money now. Obviously,
when the pandemic ended, there was a lot of pent up.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Energy to be like, I need to go outside.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
But that's because me and you didn't spend two years
of our high school experience, our two first years of
college stuck at home. Remember that's the time when you
get the taste to go outside, when you start finding
your drinking buddies, yo outside friends, your music friends. You
have to remember those years, dude, did Those years are
(29:02):
when you're discovering All research says it's like your taste
in music happens in those years. Right, If I were
to ask you what your favorite area of music, most
likely it's not always, but most likely it was like
the music you listened to in the eleventh grade, it's
probably your favorite era. Whatever you was listening to the
n is probably still your favorite era. Now, obviously that's
(29:26):
not true for everybody. But hey, if you were seventeen
you were discovering new music, you want to go to
like the Cornerhouse of Blues, right, you know this is
obviously I'm California centric.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
You wanted to hit the Glasshouse. Man?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Could you just heard about this new band? Little stings
like that, the Dragonfly, Whiskey of Go Go, the Viper Room,
all these like smaller spots that when for us out
of La these were like rights a passage. This is
how you get to say I saw them win. I
knew who Will I Am was for the Black Eyed
Peas because I saw him at the Little Temple which
is now called the Virgil when he did a beat battle.
(29:59):
They were at the corner, you know what I'm saying,
And it was fun. I knew Foster of the people.
They're in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
You would just drive down like just at the gas
lamp like Leon bridges Hell. He opened for us. You
know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Again, like we said in the earlier these these bands
that you was passionate about. You was seventeen with your
little Emo hare swooped over your eyes this or you
was crying over you understand what I'm saying, Like hugging
onto your little iPad, you know, doing that MySpace picture
when you looking down. You know it's the white people
think like this is when you went to go see them.
If that era for you was a pandemic, you didn't
(30:37):
acquire a taste for going out like that.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You saw concerts inside a fortnite.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
So what I'm saying is one of the biggest things
about gen Z is they don't go out.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
It's just it's just the reality. Not only do it
ain't got no money.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
They ain't got no money because again inflation and fine,
the cost of living is insane. But look it, gen
Z don't drink like we used to drink. They do
fewer drugs, they have less sex. Part of that is
because one they hella anxious and.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I don't blame them.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
I'm looking at my daughter now and I'm like, I'm sorry, baby,
you probably not gonna buy no house ever. I don't
even know when you're gonna move out. I don't know
what to tell you. I'm not mad. I ain't gonna
push you out of this house, because where you're gonna go,
you're gonna get seven roommates.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
They do fewer drugs, they drink less, and they don't
go nowhere because one, they anxious as hell. They nervous
around being around that many people. And if they are
gonna go out, if you ask them, the number one
thing they say is like, I ain't got nobody to
go with I mean I could go. I ain't got
nobody to go with you, cause you ain't got no friends.
You don't go nowhere, right. I've been looking at my
(31:51):
own child, like why you here?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Cuz, like don't you you're a go nowhere.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
She's starting to now, but listen, you gotta really really,
really really.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Really want to see this person that you're going to see.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
She bought Billie Eilis tickets in February the concert next month.
She decided, if I'm gonna spend this money this one,
I'm gonna spend it on right, because it's.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Worth her money.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
She loves them, she loves her, she got the album,
she went to the listening party, She's like, this is
who I'm gonna go see. They don't look and see
who's playing, or just pull up at adult music spot
and just be like, oh, one, who's playing. I'm gonna
discover new music. Now that don't happen. You can't put
on no festival if people ain't willing to come, which
leads me to one of the other problems they did,
which is the music industry itself. It is shocked themselves
(32:40):
in the foot because the big dogs, just like I
said happened in the seventeen hundreds, are doing fine. If
Live Nation and ticket Master own every venue, they only
gonna put the artists that they won't own their it
costs too much.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
So they're like, I understand what's going on with y'all festivals.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I know we doing all right, because if you are
an industry artist with the machine behind you, number one,
you don't need a festival.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
You booked the Greek theater yourself.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Why would I allow myself as an artist for you
to pay me?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Guess who turned down Coachella next year? Rihanna and Kendrick.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Why would either of them play that when they know
they can be the only artist and sell just as
many tickets. Kendrick played Staples. I'm calling his Staples because
I'm from LA. I know it's just a corporation. He
played Staples four nights in a row where the Lakers played,
but that was after doing four nights at the Honda
Center in Orange County. These are eight Southern California shows,
(33:48):
sold them all out. Why the hell would I give
that money to Coachella when I could do it myself.
Live Nation already taking a huge ass cut. Ticketmaster already
taking a huge ass cut. Scalper's already taking a huge
ass cut. There's no reason for me to give my
time and my ticket draw to you when they can
all go to myself. You did this to yourself music
(34:11):
industry by locking out all the small venues. You know
what else the music industry did to itself streaming the
algorithm that also killed the festival. You know why, because
you're fed the same music. Algorithm says you like this,
you probably don't like that, which means.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
We know all people be like music all sound the same, because.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
It does because The goal is to play music that
feeds the algorithm. You create music that gets your streaming
numbers up. This is the point I was making earlier.
While you like, I don't know nobody else on this thing,
and I'm only really concerned about the headliner. This is
the point I was making earlier. Algorithm, you create music
that works on TikTok. So music has this formula. They
(34:55):
did the same thing with coffee shops. You know why
coffee shops look like brutaliss mid century, all of them Instagram.
We're all looking at the same aesthetic. So therefore all
coffee shops look the same. The same thing happened with
music the algorithm. So you have these entire very specific niches.
(35:17):
But can everyone in your weird niche. Are there thirty
artists in your very weird niche that can bring ten
thousand people out to a field? No, because there's only
forty of y'all that like this music that's online streaming.
There's no human editorial, there's no DJ that's saying, yo, dude, long,
(35:39):
look at this.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
No, look at this.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
You're stuck to doing it yourself, and hopefully you can
climb out your algorithm, right J McDonald says, a genre
unfocused festival poster lineup starts to just look like a
playlist that has been made and personalized for somebody else. Okay,
you want to do a genre specific one, let's just say, okay,
kpop fly on and acts from Korea? How much you're
(36:02):
gonna sell all these tickets for? How many k pop
acts do you get?
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You don't book nobody local? Do you how much money
that would cost? Or you say I'm gonna do a
k pop day? All right?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So you do a three day festival. One day's k pop,
one day's EDM, one day's hip hop.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Uh, nobody's bout a three day pass.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
So one day might be trash And how do you
build it? What does the flyer look like? I don't
know half of these people. I ain't never even heard
of that. No single act can sell a festival, and
if you try to do a multi different act thing,
it's just gonna confuse the consumer. So if you're putting
on the festival, your only option is to just go big.
(36:41):
This has to do with money, So you are going
to overspend, right, because it's like, how are you gonna
get people here? You get Taylor Swift. Do you know
how much money you gotta offer somebody like a Taylor
Swift for her to give her performance to your festival
rather than just to do her own show.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
And the consumer says, again, is this worth my money?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I'm willing to throw this money at this big act
because that's what the Alcali, that's.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Who I know.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
They're not gonna risk no more because music discovery is
now algorithmic. You're not just gonna go pull up at
a spot and be like, who's this open or they're dope.
The industry did it to itself. You killed your own
performance market. And because Live Nation brought up all the
small venues where artists really get their chops and really
create fan bases and really you get to discover and
(37:32):
make connections with it, there's no places for them to play.
All that's left are the big industry artists and why
again would they give their ticket sales to a festival?
And lastly, climate change. It's hot as hell. The last
two burning bands poured rain and flooded. Before that, it
(37:54):
was like one hundred and twenty nine million degrees.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
It's hot.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
It's too hot to be out there like this climate y'all,
and enough water. It's hot as hell. It's hot as hell,
or it's floody. It's hot or it's floody. Ain't no
more nice days outside. I find the stand outside all day.
You crazy?
Speaker 4 (38:20):
You gonna make me pay extra for shade. It's an
extra one hundred dollars so I can have a humbrother.
I'm good. Just hold on, we're staying home. Staying home.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Okay, now again, let's rebuild the world. What can we
do better? That's in our control. So festivals might be done,
but it doesn't mean we don't still love music. If
you're a music lover, here are some suggestions I can
give you that would keep your favorite bands in the game.
(38:55):
The first is the easiest one for you, which of course,
is buying or streaming their music. If you're gonna stream,
here's the thing, dude, I'm not an old guy to
say that, like your release Radar or your New Music Friday,
that algorithmic playlist that's like customized just for you, it's great.
(39:15):
My request that I think would help is this. If
a song pops on and you dig it, save it
number one, and then too, go to the album, go
to that artist's page and give them a follow and
listen to the album. You heard the song, the song
was dope, and if it really resonate, I'm not begging
you to do something that you don't like, listen to
(39:35):
that album, you know the whole Like artists blowing up
on TikTok. That's why Universal was just like man tried
to dead all that, you know, So if the artist
blows up on TikTok, you you really like that, it's
not like yo, like go to that artist page, go
to their music like, you know.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Instead of just like shooting a video like that. Stuff's
short lived.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
If you're artists, like obviously you hope that one day
that happens, but that's not sustainable. You can't tour off that.
That's what happened to a lot of ours. Why I
Spice cancel half for tour dates is because there's not songs.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
There's TikTok audios. You feel me.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
That helps the artists know when they try to go
get a show that they can prove that, like, hey, listen,
these are listeners. When you go to my Spotify page,
we go to any Spotify page, the first number you
see is monthly listeners but that don't mean followers. I
have this weird upside down thing. Most people have more
monthly listeners than followers. I'm the opposite. I have three
(40:34):
times more followers than monthly listeners, which means these people
are going to be alerted when I drop music. Why
I have that is because I toured so hard. I
played every possible dumb, ugly venue I possibly could, like,
gotted out the mud, shook hands, stayed after, stayed at
(40:58):
the merch table, took pictures, got email addresses, got phone numbers,
came back, you know, signed everything. I would stay after
the show for an extra hour until everybody got their
picture and everybody got their stuff signed, hard fought so
(41:18):
that way, You're right, I'm not cranking out music that
feeds the algorithm.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
You're right. But when I drop an album, they no.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
So my request as the consumer is follow that artist
like close to the album. And secondly, the most obvious
one is like dude by merch. Oh my god, y'all,
I'm saying like merch has been the difference between car
insurance and not. For me, merch has been the difference
between can my daughter stay in her you know, dance
(41:49):
class her after school, like ballet class. Merch Like merch
is how we paid for our daughters. So during the pandemic,
hell merch it paid our rent because all he had. Now,
as an artist, you need to have dope merch.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
If your merch sucks, that I mean, it is what
it is. I can't ask you to, you know, purchase
something that's trash. Artists make dope merch. You know, I
have vinyl. Vinyl costs a lot, but you can go
to my website there's vinyl like that stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
Those make a difference.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
And then I'd also ask, like, if you really dig
an artist, this is on the artist's job to like
sign up for their newsletter, find out when they're touring,
and just and go to their shows. And when you
get there like another game. I think I told this
on the Politics podcast too, where it's like most of
the time as the artist, I keep the door like
(42:43):
meaning the ticket sales, and then the venue keeps the bar.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
So their thing is like, well, they're going to make
a ton of money on the bar.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
But that's how I get to come back is if
this venue says, oh, yeah, he brought you know, three
hundred people here, they respected my staff, they bought drink
and me as an artist, my team, I'd be silly
on stage, but we're very, very professional. I take my
reputation very serious. We make sure that like the talent buyer,
(43:12):
the venues, everybody taken care of.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
We're not yelling at the sound man. You know, we
keep a clean green room.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Like.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Those are things you could do as an artist, but
as a consumer, like I know the algorithm's fighting against you,
but like, if you really like a group, go out
of your way, even if it's on the discovery things. Again,
the big people is easy. Beyonce's tickets are gonna come
find you. You ain't gotta go find them. But Johnny
Swim but the hot shakes, right, that's what they call
(43:38):
go find them because at the end of the day,
it's your presence. If you're gonna stay in music, you
have to get butts in seats. Is this for us
to save music festivals? I don't care they did that
to themselves. I'm just trying to save live music because truly, truly,
there is nothing like it.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Oh oh oh oh oh oh, it could happen.
Speaker 7 (44:08):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts,
from cool Zone Media. Visit our website folzonmedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find
sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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