Quote:
Originally Posted by Lateralus
Speaking about festivals in a general sense, since I'm not really familiar with Coachella, I totally agree. I was so pissed off when I attended a festival at the beginning of this year and at least three pretty big bands were on at the same time. I remember thinking how stupid it was and why on earth would they put those particular bands on at the same time. It's because they have an immense number of bands playing and they have to squeeze them all in somehow. I went to my first music festival about 5 years ago and although it's not really that long ago I remember it being so much more chilled and you didn't have to plan out an itinerary to work out which bands you could and couldn't see. Festivals lately seem to have a massively huge and impressive list of bands but what they don't tell you is that you won't be able to see all of them due to the timetable.
That MySpace link works fine for me, and I just checked up the lineup and HOLY CRAP that is a huge amount of bands for 3 days! Pleased to see some local artists from down my way in there too, though.
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Festivals function under different economic enterprises than normal concerts. Like mr dave said, they operate under the principle quantity > quality, and the more people they can attract to these things the better the payoff is for the bands, the sponsors and ultimately the promotional group responsible for it.
I have no idea as to how much money these places make off corporate sponsorships, but I would imagine it would almost rival the intake from ticket sales, etc. Bands there aren't looking to wave their moral standards over the audience, they're looking to make a quick dollar (and from some of the figures I've seen it's astronomical, around $2-3M for a headliner down to $10-15K for a supporting act). One two-hour festival gig worth a year's salary -- that's why so many "huge" bands churn out to do this and don't mind when they share the stage with other big names.
As a rule these gigantic festivals are GREAT for everyone except the environment, and if you don't mind shelling out the $500-1000 (depending where you're coming from) I'm sure it's a wonderful experience. As for me? Three days of self-indulgence isn't worth the price on my conscience. I've been to Coachella Valley before (the area, not the music festival) and it's beautiful this time of year, but I'd rather spend that time in neighboring Joshua Tree than among the kinds of people that defame music festivals so.