The Four Niche Festival Strategies Taking Over Live Music

Wren Graves
·6 min read

The post The Four Niche Festival Strategies Taking Over Live Music appeared first on Consequence.

Wren Graves writes about trends in the entertainment industry and publishes a pop-culture crossword puzzle every Tuesday and Thursday in the Consequence Newsletter. Subscribe here to never miss an issue, and if you’d like, you can also check out this week’s easy mini-crossword, “Exit the Matrix,” and the more challenging Thursday puzzle, “Enter the Matrix.”

The large general-interest festivals have looked a little boring this year, but overall, live events are getting wilder. Small-time capitalists keep challenging the Live Nation-AEG duopoly, which has resulted in one Fyre Fest (so far), one Diet Fyre Fest (slightly more competent planning, a lot more poop), and a variety of lineups and experiences ranging from meh to iconic.

While the world’s largest events face anemic sales or even cancelations (here’s hoping splendour returns to Australia’s grass soon), smaller and mid-sized festivals have become petri dishes of experimentation — at least by the dull standards of corporate-sponsored music. Even Live Nation and AEG are varying their strategies.

A lot of the best festivals have one thing in common: They’re not trying to please everyone. They hone in on a certain kind of experience, they do it well, and the people who like that sort of thing are happy.

This is not groundbreaking, even if until recently it had been less common irl. But the internet bends towards niches. Our social media algorithms are as individual as snowflakes, and that expectation for personalization is spilling into every part of life. Today few people are content with a cookie cutter festival experience — especially not at modern festival prices.

The whole point of specialization is that each niche is a little different. But four dominant strategies have emerged over the last several years. Even if they’re not what you or I would look for, they’ve  clearly found an audience and would seem to have room for growth. Let’s call these strategies genre themes, lifestyles, selfies, and destinations, and let’s look at the advantages each of them has over the larger gen-fests:

Genre Themes

What if audiences wanted to see all of the artists?

I didn’t fully appreciate this until a few years ago, when, within a couple of weeks, I attended Lollapalooza with strong headliners followed by the punk-centered Riot Fest with a mediocre (by their standards) top bill. At that Lolla, like I do every year, I had time to read or nap during what I considered dead spots in the schedule. Artists performing at those times had big audiences but they weren’t for me. But at Riot, nearly every single hour brought a multi-stage conflict, even if I wasn’t more than mildly curious about some of the acts.

More festivals are building around a specific scene or sound — think Lovers & Friends with Millennial hip-hop and R&B, Kilby Block Party and blog rock, or the acutely named When We Were Young’s emo nostalgia. If these bills are your thing, then usually the whole thing is your thing, and instead of blanks spots on the schedule you’ll have to deal with FOMO for the other stages.

I do wonder about the sustainability of some of these festivals, though. What does Year 10 of When We Were Young look like? Are different bands headlining, and who would that be? Then again, nobody went broke betting on Boomer nostalgia, so maybe Millennial nostalgia will be no different.

Lifestyles

What if everyone at the festival was worth talking to?

Sometimes festival goers are united by our personal beliefs, like that our planet is worth protecting, or that Insane Clown Posse are tolerable. In these spaces our bond with fellow attendees can be stronger than our connection with the musicians on stage, and small talk with strangers becomes the easiest thing in the world.

Øya Festival in Oslo, Norway is perhaps the world’s greenest fest, and a commitment to sustainability influences nearly every moment of the audience experience. Everything down to the way you eat is thoughtfully planned. Pickathon has a similar concern for the environment, and campers wake up in the morning to see nearly pristine grounds unspoiled by festival trash. It’s only made possible because everyone commits together to shared values.

But there could be as many kinds of lifestyle festivals as there are lifestyles. As proof, look no further than Inkcarceration, where every attendee appreciates hard rock and tattoos, or the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, which is powered less by a love of ICP’s music and more by, uh, call it shared values. If you enjoy painting your face and having a drink puffing a smoke, then the Gathering of the Juggalos is one hell of a good time, even if you don’t know a single ICP lyric.

These festivals may curate a specific sound, but they pay even closer attention to environment and vibes. If I had to bet on one kind of niche festival getting more popular, it would be live experiences like these.

Selfies

What if you got to take pictures of famous(-ish) people?

At the intersection of concerts and ComicCons is a growing network of cruises, one-offs, and novelty events that make former superstars more accessible than ever. You might not be seated next to Randy Blythe at dinner aboard Lamb of God’s Headbangers Boat, but there’s a  pretty good chance of running into Eyehategod in the cruise ship hallways or catching some sun in Puerto Plata down the beach from Dethklok.

A version of this strategy has been successfully employed by the Innings and Extra Innings franchise, which books appearances from retired baseball players alongside aging hitmakers. Granted, GA admission isn’t going to get you one-on-one selfies with Ryan Dempster or Flea from the Chili Peppers. But also, Ryan Dempster might be a fan of RHCP, and you might spot him rocking a few feet away from you during the show. Part of the appeal, presumably, is that so many famous people will be around.

There’s lots of overlap between this category and both the lifestyle and destinations definitions. These are just rough ideas. But it does seem to me that certain parasocial interactions formerly confined to Cons are now being packaged with live music and aggressively monetized.

Destinations

What if you were on a beach? What if you were on a mountain? What if humans weren’t made to sit in an office all day? What if credit card debt?

I don’t need to explain the appeal of good music in a beautiful place far away from daily stress. These festivals are prolific and popular. As many grains of sand as there are on a beach, as many stars as there are in the heavens, that’s how many festivals will take place along the California and Florida coasts, or whatever the Bible said.

The most interesting part of this trend, to me at least, is how artists are using festival promoters to book themselves vacations. Wilco have used Sky Blue Sky as a semi-annual reason to visit Mexico, and Brandi Carlile’s Mothership Weekend celebrates mothers in their natural habitats (drunk on a beach in Florida). As someone currently hoping my job will send me to review Phish at The Sphere in Las Vegas (another destination event), I get it.

In all of these cases, festivals have tried giving everything to some people, instead of offering something for everyone. In the process, they’re innovating new kinds of live experiences.Festival season is exciting again.

The Four Niche Festival Strategies Taking Over Live Music
Wren Graves

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