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the rules literally state that one of your goals is to improve Bonnaroo's identity, which it's kind of hard to do if you're booking the exact same acts they always book
That’s part of the challenge. Improve the festival, but without completely abandoning the previous year’s ticket buyers. For me, I personally would never go to Bonnaroo. The goal I have in mind is to make an actual Bonnaroo lineup that I’d go to. Not trying to make my dream festival (did that already in Infinity).
Especially with electronic music (where a new subgenre seems to be the hot item every other year or so) it seems ridiculous to be like "you can't move away from one this one subgenre."
Let's break this down a bit. Joanna Newsom played Bonnaroo in 2005 and Sigur Ros played in 2008, so that's so far in the past for both acts that it really doesn't matter for 2021. (as to your later point, Newsom played Big Ears in 2010, also in the distant past)
One of the things I've been considering about whether an act is realistic is how likely they are to actually play a USA festival when they're actively touring. Joanna Newsom hasn't played a festival since Pitchfork 2013, and that's her only USA festival since Big Ears 2010. She played a decent amount of US dates in 2015-16 on the Divers tour, but shifted to tiny venues for the Strings/Keys Incident tour last year. Meanwhile, Sigur Ros played both Hangout and Boston Calling in 2017, Treasure Island Fest in 2016, and 42 USA shows between 2016-2017. When they toured in 2013, they played Coachella, Sasquatch and Laneway. Basically, if they're touring, it's reasonable to expect that they'll play a fest. That's the big difference between the acts.
This gets into what I'm talking about a bit more. The objection people seem to be having to some acts is that Bonnaroo "wouldn't" book house music or techno or whatever, but I think that kind of misses the point. It seemed like the whole point of this draft was to improve Bonnaroo's lineup, i.e. replace the crappy acts they book with good ones, but while making sure it was acts they "could" book. So yeah, Bonnaroo wouldn't book Nina Kraviz because she isn't wook bass or whatever. But there's no indication that they couldn't. Since 2014 she's played Coachella 3 times, Movement 2 times, Buku and Day for Night. She clearly has no aversion to playing festivals here, so there's no reason to believe that she wouldn't play Bonnaroo if asked. Similarly, since 2016 Maya Jane Coles has played Coachella, CRSSD, Okeechobee, Electric Forest, Movement, Ultra, III Points, etc. Meanwhile, Aphex Twin has played exactly three US dates in the last decade - DFN 2016, a show in Brooklyn 2019, and Coachella. The touring pattern indicates that a) he doesn't really care about playing that much in general, b) he really doesn't care to play the USA much, and c) he really doesn't care to play USA festivals much. That's how I'm evaluating the idea of "realism" here.
I agree that there could be a couple of house dj's (like they booked Yaeji this year) but I agree with Julie that you can't really turn the The Other into some Yuma-tent. Roo ain't no Movement.
We're booking stuff like Prydz, Duck Sauce, etc. I'm just staying away from wook bass because it sucks.
Post by Whereispassionpit on Aug 7, 2020 9:39:17 GMT -5
Everyone books all wook bass electronic. 20 pages of discussion arguing if acts we've never listened to like DMTeasers, The Ketaminerz, or Booferangs are the better bookings. My personal nightmare.
Your team has been given the opportunity to curate the lineup for Bonnaroo 2021 in competition with fifteen other teams. Your goals are to book a lineup that would (1) sell enough tickets to keep Bonnaroo alive, (2) improve Bonnaroo's identity (e.g. impress your voters) while (3) accounting for the type of acts the festival booked in earlier and later editions. More specifically, you should have three Bonnaroo sized headliners and subheadliners, late night shows, and genre diversity (jam, EDM, rap, indie, pop, rock, metal, country, comedy, cinema, etc).
I think people are reading this as “if LiveNation hired you to curate Bonnaroo” where I’m thinking about it as “if I won the powerball and bought this fucker outright, but didn’t want to completely tank it and bankrupt myself, what would I do?”
Look I think either perspective, or even a slightly different one off of this is fine, but booking Taylor Swift is a contrast to the bankrupt yourself principle
selling a festival absolutely means you need to play to the base you've sold out to two years in a row now
We've got Phish on the lineup.
Edit: also, again this seems silly and counter to the whole point of the game. There's a goal to sell 70k tickets and stay within the general spirit of the festival, not sell 70k tickets to the exact same group of people that attended in 2019.
Pretty sure Loretta Lynn's big 80th birthday show at whatever the Nahville arena is called these days was a farewell kinda deal. I saw her 10 years ago and she played maybe an hour, had guest singers for half of it, and sat in a chair whenever she got winded. Which was a lot.
selling a festival absolutely means you need to play to the base you've sold out to two years in a row now
We've got Phish on the lineup.
Edit: also, again this seems silly and counter to the whole point of the game. There's a goal to sell 70k tickets and stay within the general spirit of the festival, not sell 70k tickets to the exact same group of people that attended in 2019.
it’s true for any fest that if you want to sell out three years in a row, you should appeal to the base you’ve built. Otherwise, you’re kind of digging yourself a hole in trying to explain why a complete change of course would sell out when you’ve likely lost a very dedicated base.
Edit: also, again this seems silly and counter to the whole point of the game. There's a goal to sell 70k tickets and stay within the general spirit of the festival, not sell 70k tickets to the exact same group of people that attended in 2019.
it’s true for any fest that if you want to sell out three years in a row, you should appeal to the base you’ve built. Otherwise, you’re kind of digging yourself a hole in trying to explain why a complete change of course would sell out when you’ve likely lost a very dedicated base.
Pretty sure Loretta Lynn's big 80th birthday show at whatever the Nahville arena is called these days was a farewell kinda deal. I saw her 10 years ago and she played maybe an hour, had guest singers for half of it, and sat in a chair whenever she got winded. Which was a lot.
Joanna Newsom is as realistic as Sigur Ros and both have played Roo
Let's break this down a bit. Joanna Newsom played Bonnaroo in 2005 and Sigur Ros played in 2008, so that's so far in the past for both acts that it really doesn't matter for 2021. (as to your later point, Newsom played Big Ears in 2010, also in the distant past)
One of the things I've been considering about whether an act is realistic is how likely they are to actually play a USA festival when they're actively touring. Joanna Newsom hasn't played a festival since Pitchfork 2013, and that's her only USA festival since Big Ears 2010. She played a decent amount of US dates in 2015-16 on the Divers tour, but shifted to tiny venues for the Strings/Keys Incident tour last year. Meanwhile, Sigur Ros played both Hangout and Boston Calling in 2017, Treasure Island Fest in 2016, and 42 USA shows between 2016-2017. When they toured in 2013, they played Coachella, Sasquatch and Laneway. Basically, if they're touring, it's reasonable to expect that they'll play a fest. That's the big difference between the acts.
The fact remains that she did do those shows last year. A significant amount in the US. She's played Bonnaroo and Big Ears. The genre of music she performs is completely in line with the history of the fest. It doesn't really matter how small those venues were. That Tent will be half full, but Deafheaven was less than that last year. 21 shows in the US last year. SR hasn't even played the US since 2017. And btw that Hangout booking may be the single weirdest booking ever. Can't imagine that the sparse crowd was a good sign for other fests to try to summon them after 4 years of no shows.
Either way, I still think both are fine to have on these lineups.
Edit: also, again this seems silly and counter to the whole point of the game. There's a goal to sell 70k tickets and stay within the general spirit of the festival, not sell 70k tickets to the exact same group of people that attended in 2019.
it’s true for any fest that if you want to sell out three years in a row, you should appeal to the base you’ve built. Otherwise, you’re kind of digging yourself a hole in trying to explain why a complete change of course would sell out when you’ve likely lost a very dedicated base.
I mean for some lineups maybe but the Taylor Swift festival in Tennessee is going to sell out, dead stop.
it’s true for any fest that if you want to sell out three years in a row, you should appeal to the base you’ve built. Otherwise, you’re kind of digging yourself a hole in trying to explain why a complete change of course would sell out when you’ve likely lost a very dedicated base.
I mean for some lineups maybe but the Taylor Swift festival in Tennessee is going to sell out, dead stop.
Seems like a great opportunity to tinker with the undercard formula imo.