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If the C3 acquisition is correct, can we, at bare minimum, hope that the new production company knows how to do sound correctly at the Red stage??? One can dream.
This is only based on other C3 festival lineups and not any known trajectory from BC themselves atm, but it would be interesting if they suddenly went multi-genre when genre-specific festivals seem to be the most successful these days
Edit: Moving the location, especially to somewhere not accessible by public transportation, will probably affect the lineup too. I can't see them booking many artists that appeal strongly to Boston's college student population like Japanese Breakfast if the fest were to move somewhere you need a car to get to. They've been moving away from those kinds of bookings but I could see them cutting them out completely
GBH is running a spot on Boston Calling production being sold from Crash Line to C3, which is owned by Live Nation. Don’t love that it’s part of that organization now, but maybe give them a bit more stability/weight to toss around?
* I wonder if this means that its Crash Line's stake in the festival that's being sold, or all ownership -- lock, stock, and barrel -- including the MSG Company's majority ownership.
* This explains the lack of an end-of-the-year early bird onsale, pre-lineup drop. New owners would probably want to handle that themselves.
* New ownership might mean a lot of big and small changes. I'm wondering if they're contractually locked into Harvard Athletic Grounds, or if they might want to move it somewhere out to the 'burbs, like the Gillette Stadium parking lot. That would be a terrible move, since it would mean that car-free area residents may not be able to get to the new location.
* I'd also expect changes like new ticketing system (LN's partner Ticketmaster?), different food vendors and sponsors, and aftershows moved farther away to LN-owned venues (I can't imagine that a Live Nation-owned festival is going to partner with AEG to do aftershows at The Sinclair or Roadrunner. That's a shame, though, since those venues are so close to the grounds.)
* Anything and everything relating to the lineup and how it's presented could change, too. More stages? Expand to a fourth day on Thursday or Monday? Or dropping back to two days? Changing the number of local artists who perform, whether that number increases or decreases? Settling upon a somewhat narrower genre focus? Bringing programming (whether comedy, music, or whatever) back to the arena?
GBH is running a spot on Boston Calling production being sold from Crash Line to C3, which is owned by Live Nation. Don’t love that it’s part of that organization now, but maybe give them a bit more stability/weight to toss around?
C3 produces ACL, Lollapalooza, and Shaky Knees. I'd imagine more overlap with those lineups now, depending on when the purchase happened and artist commitments were done. They also manage a few bands, like The Strokes.
Good point about the timing of the sale and contractual commitments. If most of the top half of the poster was set by September or October, C3 would almost certainly be taking on existing talent contracts for 2023.
GBH is running a spot on Boston Calling production being sold from Crash Line to C3, which is owned by Live Nation. Don’t love that it’s part of that organization now, but maybe give them a bit more stability/weight to toss around?
* Anything and everything relating to the lineup and how it's presented could change, too. More stages? Expand to a fourth day on Thursday or Monday? Or dropping back to two days? Changing the number of local artists who perform, whether that number increases or decreases? Settling upon a somewhat narrower genre focus? Bringing programming (whether comedy, music, or whatever) back to the arena?
This is what I am interested in. How will the lineup/direction of the festival change? BC obviously took on a new direction with the move to the Harvard grounds and the MSG ownership, but remained multi-genre with strong undercards that a few years later are headlining other festivals, if not BC itself. The headliners just got bigger. Looking at the other festivals that C3 produces, I think Shaky Knees is the best to look at based on its size and when it originated, both very similar to BC. ACL and Lolla are both longer running and larger festivals.
C3 started producing Shaky Knees a few years after its inception and, for the most part, the direction of the festival hasn't shifted (still Indie/Alternative Rock mixed in with Folk/Americana). The only part that has changed is the length of the festival - from 2 to 3 days - and location (to support and facilitate its growth). Also, Tim Sweetwood has remained on as the primary curator of the festival. So, I wonder if Brian Appel will remain in any capacity with the C3 purchase.
* Anything and everything relating to the lineup and how it's presented could change, too. More stages? Expand to a fourth day on Thursday or Monday? Or dropping back to two days? Changing the number of local artists who perform, whether that number increases or decreases? Settling upon a somewhat narrower genre focus? Bringing programming (whether comedy, music, or whatever) back to the arena?
This is what I am interested in. How will the lineup/direction of the festival change? BC obviously took on a new direction with the move to the Harvard grounds and the MSG ownership, but remained multi-genre with strong undercards that a few years later are headlining other festivals, if not BC itself. The headliners just got bigger. Looking at the other festivals that C3 produces, I think Shaky Knees is the best to look at based on its size and when it originated, both very similar to BC. ACL and Lolla are both longer running and larger festivals.
C3 started producing Shaky Knees a few years after its inception and, for the most part, the direction of the festival hasn't shifted (still Indie/Alternative Rock mixed in with Folk/Americana). The only part that has changed is the length of the festival - from 2 to 3 days - and location (to support and facilitate its growth). Also, Tim Sweetwood has remained on as the primary curator of the festival. So, I wonder if Brian Appel will remain in any capacity with the C3 purchase.
It just occurred to me. One very welcome change to Boston Calling might be doing away with mostly unopposed headliners and a 75 minute cap on the Blue Stage closer. Some of the acts they've booked in that spot, like Goose and King Gizzard, really need no less than 90 minutes, given the nature of their music and live show.
With Foo Fighters' announcement, there's a chance that if they play here BC could have literally the same pool of 4 planned headliners repeating for years in a row lmao
With Foo Fighters' announcement, there's a chance that if they play here BC could have literally the same pool of 4 planned headliners repeating for years in a row lmao
RHCP - Foo Fighters - The Strokes
Last Edit: Dec 31, 2022 13:22:05 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
I’m gonna call the Walkmen a lock with them continuing to add DC shows but avoid Saturday/Sunday of BC weekend
Yep, and with BC social media out of their slumber (they posted again today), I believe we are a week away from either early-bird tix on sale or a lineup reveal.
Asked the person on Reddit who posted about the 10th as the drop date and this was their response:
Bonnaroo and Boston Calling are two completely different festivals in different parts of the country. They don’t really compete for ticket sales with each other. With January 10th confirmed for BC, I can’t see them changing it now
Asked the person on Reddit who posted about the 10th as the drop date and this was their response:
Bonnaroo and Boston Calling are two completely different festivals in different parts of the country. They don’t really compete for ticket sales with each other. With January 10th confirmed for BC, I can’t see them changing it now
More confirmation of the C3 purchase of Boston Calling - not sure how reliable the person is (posted on Reddit), but it logically makes sense:
The deal closed early Nov-ish. They were in talks with MSG since summer, maybe even before. You can be sure C3's talent buying department will take over, as MSG shouldered the majority of that the last couple BC's. CLP's talent buyer moved on @ 2018-2019 and it shifted all to MSG at that point. It's unlikely that whatever deals were in the works prior to the take-over would be summarily scrapped, its more likely that most, if not all negotiations were moved forward and C3 picked up the rest. There were probably a few casualties along the way.
i'm under the impression that CLP actually did hire a replacement talent booker in that 2018-19 time frame, because i met a guy who told me he's been doing it for a couple years. not sure if maybe he's just helping out or "in charge" but he had no reason to be lying about it. also this was definitely before November so things could've changed if the deal with C3 wasn't done yet.
Well, they may beat In Between Days to the punch on the official lineup drop, but as those who read the IBD thread know, the poster appears to have been leaked and someone posted the lineup there.
So, given the timing of top line negotiations, can Foo Fighters really be in play for this year, or did they wait too long to decide their future in time to book this year?
Well, they may beat In Between Days to the punch on the official lineup drop, but as those who read the IBD thread know, the poster appears to have been leaked and someone posted the lineup there.
Or not...IBD is dropping its lineup tomorrow.
I suppose that everyone on the poster (except for the local bands?) is out for Boston Calling.
this festival may be not be the best or have the most well rounded lineup but props to them for always making an announcement of when the lineup comes out
I can't help but feel that we're going to be seeing a lot of changes due to the change in ownership.
It's clear that there likely isn't going to be the usual blind early bird presale, where you have the opportunity to buy passes at a heavily discounted price, but without knowing who's performing. (It also seems likely that C3 isn't going to honor Boston Calling's previous offer to let people who rolled over their passes through the cancelled years buy passes at the early bird price after the lineup is announced.)
The lack of a blind early bird presale suggests a few possibilities to me. One possibility is that they're significantly narrowing the focus of the event and the lineup is going to resemble a Shaky Knees, Welcome To Rockville, recent vintage Governors Ball, or Rolling Loud lineup, and they don't want to kick off their ownership with a ton of unhappy people who spent money on what they assumed would be a stylistically diverse festival and got something far more specific than that. (I still feel ripped off for having bought blind early bird for 2016 and then seeing the actual lineup. After three years of lineups filled with indie rock and Americana artists, among others, they leaned heavily into dance pop, pop, and EDM without having given people a heads-up that this is what they had planned.)
On the other hand, maybe there's no blind presale because they're raising prices (and capacity) dramatically to pay for the artists on the second big stage they're adding, as well as another smaller stage or two. Given the clout of Live Nation/C3, perhaps they've worked out a deal with Harvard to use more of the grounds. Maybe a second large stage is being added in the stadium or maybe another small-to-mid-sized stage is added at the baseball field. The optics might be bad if they raised prices significantly before people knew that they were getting a lot more for their money.
