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Post by mcnasty on Jan 22, 2019 22:07:57 GMT -5
I was recalling last year's tumultuous events leading up to Bunbury (Blink canceling, waiting until the last minute for schedules and maps) and the speculation that things were not going well in the Promowest camp, and I started thinking about how many festivals have met their end in the last few years. As it turns out, the festival bubble is definitely bursting. A lot of small to mid size/regional festivals like Bunbury have not been able to find long term success, and a huge number have gone under in the past two years alone and this "off season" has been brutal. Its actually quite startling. It makes me appreciate the fact that Bunbury continues to grow and sold out last year.
For fun, here are the festivals I found that have gone belly up recently, as well as their run and the final year's lineup. These are in no particular order, I just put them down as I thought of them or found them. Feel free to add in any I have missed and speculate on who might be in trouble based on this year's lineups.
I have been working on this as a pet project off and on for a while now before posting, so please forgive any minor mistakes, it was not comprehensively editesd.
Okeechobee Music and Arts Fest--Okeechobee, FL active 2016-2018, produced by Soundslinger--2018 Headliners: Arcade Fire, Bassnectar, Halsey, Travis Scott NOTE: On official hiatus and plans to return in 2020, but signs are not good.
Loufest--St. Louis,MO, 2010-2018, produced by Listen Live--2018 Headliners: Modest Mouse, Robert Plan, The Head + The Heart, Kacey Musgraves. Cancelled abruptly the week of the festival after vendors and suppliers did not provide their services due to outstanding debt
Sloss Fest--Birmingham, AL 2015-2018, produced by RedMountain Entertainment and AC Entertainment--2018 Headliners:Arcade Fire, Chris Stapleton, Griz, Jason Isbell NOTE: This was pretty much a sister festival to Forecastle. Their lineups were always about 75% the same and their headliners were almost identical. Its failure is probably why some folks are speculating that Forecastle is struggling.
Sasquatch Festival--George, Washington, 2002-2018, produced by Adam Zacks--2018 Headliners: Bon Iver, Modest Mouse, The National
Grandoozy--Denver, CO, 2018, produced by Superfly--Headliners: Stevie Wonder, Florence + the Machine, Kendrick Lamar, The Chainsmokers
In Bloom Festival-- Houston, Texas, 2018(Formerly Free Press Music Festival 2010-2017), Produced by Free Press Houston--2018 Headliners: Beck, Queens of the Stone Age, Incubus, Martin Garrix
Panorama--New York, NY, 2016-2018, Produced by Goldenvoice--2018 Headliners: The Killers, Janet Jackson, The Weeknd
FYF--Los Angelas CA, 2004-2017, Produced by Goldenvoice--2017 Headliners: Nine Inch Nails, Missy Elliot, Frank Ocean
Lost Lake Fest--Phoenix, AZ 2017, cancelled four months before second edition in 2018, produced by Superfly--2018 Headliners: Imagine Dragons, The Chainsmokers, Sza, Future (No mystery why that lineup failed)
Wayhome--Oro Medonte, Ontario, 2015-2017, produced by Republic Live--2017 Headliners: Imagine Dragons, Frank Ocean, Flume
Promowest Fest--Columbus, OH,2016 , produced by PromoWest--Headliners:The Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, Snoop Dogg, Brand New
Landmark Music Festival--Washington DC, 2015, produced by National Mall--Headliners: The Strokes, Drake, Alt J
Incuya Music Festival--Cleveland OH, 2018, produced by Cleveland Concert Company--Headliners: New Order, Avett Brothers, SZA, Awolnation
Midpoint Music Festival--Cincinnati, OH, 2001-2017, produced by Bill Donabedian and Rick McCarty--2018 Headliners: Walk the Moon, The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene
Moontower Music Festival--Lexington, KY, 2014-2017, 2017 Headliners: Umphery's McGee, Benjamin Booker, JJ Grey + Mofro
Ubahn Festival--Cincinnati, OH 2016-2017, 2017 Headliners: Big Sean, Gucci Mane, 2 Chainz
Buckle Up! Festival--Cincinnati, OH, 2014, produced by Bill Donabedian, 2014 Headliners: Alabama, Willie Nelson, The Band Perry
Fountain Square Music Festival--Indianapolis, IN, 2013-2017, Produced by MOKB Presents--2017 Headliners: Dr. Dog, Phantogram, Bishop Briggs, Real Estate ***Currently on hiatus, will supposedly return in 2019, but I included it as a precaution
Evermore Music Festival--Indianapolis, IN 2016, Produced by Nick White and Zach Morris--Headliners: Guster, Atlas Genius, Prismo
Obviously not all of them, but interesting to examine. During my research, I found most of these fests did have noticeably worse lineups during their final year than previous years, which could be a bad sign for festivals like Governors Ball and Hangout.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2019 14:39:02 GMT -5
How about Buckle Up?
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Post by kbach on Jan 23, 2019 21:29:12 GMT -5
And Promowest Fest.
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Post by ordealbyfire on Jan 23, 2019 22:06:23 GMT -5
I’m still sickened about what’s happened to Firefly. ‘16 was the first fest I ever went to. It was awesome. I discovered so many great bands. Then in ‘17, douches were everywhere. Line up was still pretty good, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back ‘18 line up? Pretty rough. Someone died, even. Douches must’ve been at an all time high. And then ‘19...? Their line up this year is one of the very worst I’ve ever seen a festival put out, and they cut it to a three day festival. Firefly is TOAST. And it’s a shame. Look at their inaugural line up, and the first few years after — freakin’ great.
I’ve complained about MoPop in Detroit being a small two-day fest, but if it keeps having solid line ups and keeps on keeping on, I won’t complain about it.
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Post by mcnasty on Jan 23, 2019 23:12:36 GMT -5
I’m still sickened about what’s happened to Firefly. ‘16 was the first fest I ever went to. It was awesome. I discovered so many great bands. Then in ‘17, douches were everywhere. Line up was still pretty good, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back ‘18 line up? Pretty rough. Someone died, even. Douches must’ve been at an all time high. And then ‘19...? Their line up this year is one of the very worst I’ve ever seen a festival put out, and they cut it to a three day festival. Firefly is TOAST. And it’s a shame. Look at their inaugural line up, and the first few years after — freakin’ great. I’ve complained about MoPop in Detroit being a small two-day fest, but if it keeps having solid line ups and keeps on keeping on, I won’t complain about it. Yeah Firefly's direction is a tragedy, it really is.That was on my bucket list after seeing the first five lineups. Absolutely brilliant from top to bottom. 17 was not a positive change and I knew we were in trouble when it continued to shift. This year's is just an absolute sell out. Hangout is the same. I think Hangout will be next to croak. Both are pretty big though, so they might hold up just because they are destination festivals and have a great setting. |
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Post by mcnasty on Jan 23, 2019 23:27:36 GMT -5
Ah yes, anyone know the story with that? Was it really about the venue or was attendance a problem? The lineup was good, but I chose not to go. I think it might have been crowding the festival market a little too much, and it did recycle a LOT of Bunbury's acts from the prior two years |
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Post by ordealbyfire on Jan 23, 2019 23:38:22 GMT -5
I’m still sickened about what’s happened to Firefly. ‘16 was the first fest I ever went to. It was awesome. I discovered so many great bands. Then in ‘17, douches were everywhere. Line up was still pretty good, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back ‘18 line up? Pretty rough. Someone died, even. Douches must’ve been at an all time high. And then ‘19...? Their line up this year is one of the very worst I’ve ever seen a festival put out, and they cut it to a three day festival. Firefly is TOAST. And it’s a shame. Look at their inaugural line up, and the first few years after — freakin’ great. I’ve complained about MoPop in Detroit being a small two-day fest, but if it keeps having solid line ups and keeps on keeping on, I won’t complain about it. Yeah Firefly's direction is a tragedy, it really is.That was on my bucket list after seeing the first five lineups. Absolutely brilliant from top to bottom. 17 was not a positive change and I knew we were in trouble when it continued to shift. This year's is just an absolute sell out. Hangout is the same. I think Hangout will be next to croak. Both are pretty big though, so they might hold up just because they are destination festivals and have a great setting. Haven’t been to Hangout, but personally, I wouldn’t consider Firefly a “great setting.” There’s the wooded walkway that’s pretty nice, but other than that, it’s farmland without much going on. A lot of space to get around and all of that, but minimal character. I think that’s a lot of why I see appeal in smaller festivals. I think Firefly and Hangout have 2-3 more years tops. |
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Post by mcnasty on Jan 23, 2019 23:58:22 GMT -5
Yeah Firefly's direction is a tragedy, it really is.That was on my bucket list after seeing the first five lineups. Absolutely brilliant from top to bottom. 17 was not a positive change and I knew we were in trouble when it continued to shift. This year's is just an absolute sell out. Hangout is the same. I think Hangout will be next to croak. Both are pretty big though, so they might hold up just because they are destination festivals and have a great setting. Haven’t been to Hangout, but personally, I wouldn’t consider Firefly a “great setting.” There’s the wooded walkway that’s pretty nice, but other than that, it’s farmland without much going on. A lot of space to get around and all of that, but minimal character. I think that’s a lot of why I see appeal in smaller festivals. I think Firefly and Hangout have 2-3 more years tops. I agree. They're banking on current acts like Travis Scott and Post Malone to pull in big crowds as headliners as opposed to the more traditional "veteran" headliners like Florence, RHCP, Killers, Tom Petty, etc. Thats a gamble, we'll see if it works. Especially since Firefly is a camping festival and that lineup really appeals to high schoolers. The fact that someone posted on reddit asking if there was a way to to get around the rule that you have to be 18 to purchase a campsite tells you all you need to know. |
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Post by kbach on Jan 24, 2019 0:00:07 GMT -5
Ah yes, anyone know the story with that? Was it really about the venue or was attendance a problem? The lineup was good, but I chose not to go. I think it might have been crowding the festival market a little too much, and it did recycle a LOT of Bunbury's acts from the prior two years I went up there Friday and it was legitimately like a ghost town. I don't know if they forgot to promote or what, but it was empty. Worked well for me as I got great seats for The Wombats, Fitz, Banners, and some others. After we left Friday, there were scalpers that tried to buy my wristband and the most they would offer is 5 dollars lol. I remember walking out of Bunbury Saturday and I was offered 75 dollars. I was coming back to Cincy Saturday for the FCC Crystal Palace game, but I tried going back Sunday and no one was interested. I heard they gave away a lot of tickets, I could not recall one person I met that said they oain full price. I enjoyed Bunbury more, but I had a good time in Columbus, and I would have returned if the festival did too. |
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Post by mcnasty on Jan 24, 2019 0:12:18 GMT -5
Ah yes, anyone know the story with that? Was it really about the venue or was attendance a problem? The lineup was good, but I chose not to go. I think it might have been crowding the festival market a little too much, and it did recycle a LOT of Bunbury's acts from the prior two years I went up there Friday and it was legitimately like a ghost town. I don't know if they forgot to promote or what, but it was empty. Worked well for me as I got great seats for The Wombats, Fitz, Banners, and some others. After we left Friday, there were scalpers that tried to buy my wristband and the most they would offer is 5 dollars lol. I remember walking out of Bunbury Saturday and I was offered 75 dollars. I was coming back to Cincy Saturday for the FCC Crystal Palace game, but I tried going back Sunday and no one was interested. I heard they gave away a lot of tickets, I could not recall one person I met that said they oain full price. I enjoyed Bunbury more, but I had a good time in Columbus, and I would have returned if the festival did too. Thank you for the insight! That's very interesting. I'd have to think over-saturation and competition from their own festival (Bunbury) as well as Forecastle and Laurelive probably really hampered it. That and the lack of promotion. I'm not from Columbus, but my sister lives there and I visit quite often. It honestly seems like a city that a festival would thrive in, and given that Promowest is a major pillar of the columbus music scene, I'm shocked they could not make it work. |
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Post by funkymoses17 on Jan 24, 2019 9:01:58 GMT -5
I live here in Columbus and it was very interesting how the whole Promowest thing went down. The lineup wasn't the greatest ever but should have been a no brainer for people in town at the bare minimum. I didn't know a single person interested in going and we were given free single day passes at the Do Dah Parade on the 4th of July. I don't remember the line up for the day we had the tickets to but it was coming off a long weekend for us so we decided to pass on it. Personally I think the main issue is that they had the same set up as Fashion Meets Music Festival, which was this park area in the Arena District sandwiched between 2 apartment buildings so everything was narrow and they did the whole 2 stages facing eachother thing. While I get the idea of that I often times feel like it causes more issues than it is worth. There was a bad stigma about that place after FMMF had so many problems and I think people just expected a better set up from PW and became disinterested.
I think in a year or two there will be better set ups around the city to host another one. It's hard to imagine PW couldn't run a successful festival in Columbus. I think we had talked here and I've read in some of the Soccer blogs that once the new Crew Stadium is built there was an idea of trying to move Rock on the Range downtown, or make it a bigger event (SXSW) and use a lot of the local venues for acts and make the lineups far more diverse. It remains to be seen if PW will have anything to do with that at that point. But it is kind of wild they weren't able to make a festival in their own backyard work right off the bat haha.
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Post by mcnasty on Jan 24, 2019 12:01:49 GMT -5
I live here in Columbus and it was very interesting how the whole Promowest thing went down. The lineup wasn't the greatest ever but should have been a no brainer for people in town at the bare minimum. I didn't know a single person interested in going and we were given free single day passes at the Do Dah Parade on the 4th of July. I don't remember the line up for the day we had the tickets to but it was coming off a long weekend for us so we decided to pass on it. Personally I think the main issue is that they had the same set up as Fashion Meets Music Festival, which was this park area in the Arena District sandwiched between 2 apartment buildings so everything was narrow and they did the whole 2 stages facing eachother thing. While I get the idea of that I often times feel like it causes more issues than it is worth. There was a bad stigma about that place after FMMF had so many problems and I think people just expected a better set up from PW and became disinterested. I think in a year or two there will be better set ups around the city to host another one. It's hard to imagine PW couldn't run a successful festival in Columbus. I think we had talked here and I've read in some of the Soccer blogs that once the new Crew Stadium is built there was an idea of trying to move Rock on the Range downtown, or make it a bigger event (SXSW) and use a lot of the local venues for acts and make the lineups far more diverse. It remains to be seen if PW will have anything to do with that at that point. But it is kind of wild they weren't able to make a festival in their own backyard work right off the bat haha. Interesting! I was not previously familiar with FMMF (Not from Columbus) but I'm going to assume that its direct competition might have been a factor as well. I looked it up, they had some interesting yet slightly confusing lineups, and they certainly made a BIG splash their inaugural year by announcing R. Kelly as a headliner haha. Yikes, talk about a PR shitstorm to get your festival off on the right foot. Surprised it lasted three more years after that. It appears to be dead now though. The website still says "See you in 2018!" |
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Post by funkymoses17 on Jan 24, 2019 12:11:31 GMT -5
I live here in Columbus and it was very interesting how the whole Promowest thing went down. The lineup wasn't the greatest ever but should have been a no brainer for people in town at the bare minimum. I didn't know a single person interested in going and we were given free single day passes at the Do Dah Parade on the 4th of July. I don't remember the line up for the day we had the tickets to but it was coming off a long weekend for us so we decided to pass on it. Personally I think the main issue is that they had the same set up as Fashion Meets Music Festival, which was this park area in the Arena District sandwiched between 2 apartment buildings so everything was narrow and they did the whole 2 stages facing eachother thing. While I get the idea of that I often times feel like it causes more issues than it is worth. There was a bad stigma about that place after FMMF had so many problems and I think people just expected a better set up from PW and became disinterested. I think in a year or two there will be better set ups around the city to host another one. It's hard to imagine PW couldn't run a successful festival in Columbus. I think we had talked here and I've read in some of the Soccer blogs that once the new Crew Stadium is built there was an idea of trying to move Rock on the Range downtown, or make it a bigger event (SXSW) and use a lot of the local venues for acts and make the lineups far more diverse. It remains to be seen if PW will have anything to do with that at that point. But it is kind of wild they weren't able to make a festival in their own backyard work right off the bat haha. Interesting! I was not previously familiar with FMMF (Not from Columbus) but I'm going to assume that its direct competition might have been a factor as well. I looked it up, they had some interesting yet slightly confusing lineups, and they certainly made a BIG splash their inaugural year by announcing R. Kelly as a headliner haha. Yikes, talk about a PR shitstorm to get your festival off on the right foot. Surprised it lasted three more years after that. It appears to be dead now though. The website still says "See you in 2018!" I only went the last year they had it (I forget how but we wont free tickets to it) and it was fine but I'm sure the setup was exactly how PW Fest was. The lineups for FMMF were a bit odd and the R. Kelly stuff got HUGE backlash locally to the point they cancelled him I believe. That area of town and outside has some pretty strict noise restrictions if I remember correctly. I believe the owner of FMMF might not have been the right person for the job behind the scenes or something like that. I forget what the hang up was overall but I don't think there was much of a cohesive relationship between he and the city and that did not help the cause. Not to mention the promotion and marketing was subpar as well. |
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Post by bboy2112 on Jan 24, 2019 14:20:41 GMT -5
i think firefly will defintely bite the dust soon. maybe gov ball because of the weak undercard but stellar headliners this year.
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Post by akronbunbarian on Jan 24, 2019 17:43:59 GMT -5
Incuya Music Festival, the inaugural of which was in downtown Cleveland last year, will not be back this year. I thought about going one day for J Roddy and AWOL, but did not. I guess the crowds were disappointing.
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Post by chetguy on Jan 25, 2019 11:01:59 GMT -5
Can we add midpoint to the list?
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Post by emceedubs on Jan 25, 2019 11:07:16 GMT -5
Also would like to add Moontower to the list. Although it was only a 1 day festival, they usually got a few good acts and you couldn’t beat for $25-40.
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Post by exposd on Jan 25, 2019 11:26:44 GMT -5
We can add UBAHN Fest to this list as well. It was a 2 day hip-hop festival held in the underground tunnels below Cincinnati. I went the last 2 years it was running and loved it. It featured acts like Nas, 2 Chainz, Gucci Mane, Big Sean, Girl Talk, Steve Aoki, Atmosphere, MGK, Lacrae, and Jon Bellion the 2 years I attended. Sadly, this past year nothing was ever posted and website was never updated. ;( www.ubahnfest.com/ |
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Post by mcnasty on Jan 25, 2019 19:10:48 GMT -5
Added all the suggestions above to my original post, thanks for the input! Added Fountain Square from here in Indy and the utter failure and embarrassment that was Evermore. That fest went bankrupt and failed to pay the local acts that made 90% of the lineup after less than 1,000 people attended the 3 day event.
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Post by rascalmj on Jan 27, 2019 13:18:18 GMT -5
Can we add midpoint to the list? I thought midpoint was coming back now that the banks project or whatever it was is moving forward? |
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Post by eeeeetrain on Jan 31, 2019 23:13:41 GMT -5
Don't forget to add Bunbury
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