Are Music Festivals the Best Way to Enjoy Music and for Musicians to Make Money?

Chris Sarda
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

No one buys physical media. Streaming doesn’t pay enough unless you’re Drake. We’ve all heard the takes on the current state of the music industry. It’s terrible for musicians and Spotify is evil and it needs to pay people more (or something like that). Bands now have to tour a lot and sell merch if they want to have a chance to be viable.

I get wanting to make money. I love money. The main reason I’m not in a band is because I have no musical talent, the second reason is because I like to make money. I am happy there are bands out there that are willing to take the risk or do it all for the love of their art. I don’t mind paying to see those bands and I hope they get a decent amount of my ticket revenue.

Bands like doing festivals because they pay well and there’s not the same level of risk of a promoter screwing them out of money like there is when you do shows in small rooms in downtown venues. But festivals are hard even for devoted music lunatics like myself. I’m glad bands are getting paid but it’s just not often that I’ll pay $300 plus dollars to attend three days of ten hour shifts of music. There are diminishing returns to the amount I can enjoy even one of favorite bands after I’ve standing around for that long.

A lot of people will tell me that I shouldn’t watch every band and that I should hang out and have a good time but I’m not built like that. I go to a lot of shows in the course of year but I’m rested and can pick and choose where my $20 goes and what nights are good for me.

Festivals are work. Everything seemed to align for Psycho Las Vegas which took place in my hometown of Las Vegas between 8/18 and 8/20. The lineup was right up my alley, a lot of the bands that I’ve been following and a few that I wanted know much better. I didn’t have to travel. I could sleep in my own bed. But except for alcohol I don’t do drugs and 12 hour shifts of music is a killer. You need some sort of upper or you need to make the choice to miss whole blocks of music.

I really wanted to see the Swans live but who decided to put an often quiet experimental band on second to last on the final day of the festival? I couldn’t do it. If the lineups at Psycho continue being as good as they’ve been and it stays in Vegas then I’ll continue to try because it’s that good despite the slog.

Although that last few paragraphs have been me complaining I do understand that festivals are the new paradigm, there is definitely a bubble, there are too many music fests, but they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. I’ve accepted it.

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Chris Sarda

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