[Dixielandjazz] Attendance Strong at Bellwether Music Festival

[Stephen G Barbone]

Coachella music festival a success.
OKOM Festival promoters might note the two concert industry truisms in  
the below article:
1) Festival goers will pay $250 or so for a weekend pass to see or  
hear 100 acts at a major festival.
2) A TOP TALENT headliner or two will draw audience to the festival.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

April 20, 2009 - NY TIMES - by Ben Sisario
Attendance Strong at Coachella Despite the Economy

INDIO, Calif. — What does it look like when the concert industry  
exhales in relief? Tens of thousands of illuminated cellphones,  
swaying in the night.

That’s what happened at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival  
here on Saturday, when M.I.A., the Sri Lankan-British rapper who was  
performing for the first time since giving birth two months ago, sang  
her hit “Paper Planes.” The festival grounds lighted up all around  
with hand-held fluorescence, mirroring M.I.A.’s own glow-in-the-dark  
outfit.

Even as the recorded music industry contracts, the live music business  
continues to flourish. Coachella, in the scorching but majestically  
beautiful desert east of Los Angeles, is the year’s first major  
festival and a bellwether for the all-important summer touring season.  
Paul Tollett, the president of Goldenvoice, the promoter behind the  
festival, now in its 10th year, said that despite the economy it was a  
success. . . .

Final attendance figures will not be available until Monday for the  
festival, which ran from Friday through Sunday and featured Paul  
McCartney, the Cure, Morrissey, Leonard Cohen, the Killers and Franz  
Ferdinand. But organizers said this year would probably be its third  
largest. (The most popular was in 2007, with Rage Against the Machine,  
Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers and attendance of 186,000.) . . .

The proliferation of big festivals, like Bonnaroo near Nashville and  
Lollapalooza in Chicago, has not been without casualties. This year  
Langerado in Miami shut down, citing the economy. The Pemberton  
Festival in British Columbia is on hiatus after only one year,  
although its promoter, Live Nation, said the problem was permit  
delays. . . .

“If any of us think our festivals are going to last forever, they’re  
crazy,” he said. “If you start inching up the price and don’t deliver  
a solid product, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Three-day passes for Lollapalooza begin at $190 and will go higher as  
the event approaches. (Lollapalooza organizers said this weekend that  
the festival would feature Jane’s Addiction, Beastie Boys, Kings of  
Leon, Depeche Mode and more than 100 other acts. The full lineup is to  
be announced Tuesday.) Coachella’s weekend tickets went for $269.  
Bonnaroo, running June 11 to 14, with Bruce Springsteen, Phish, the  
Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails and others, is $249.50, and also has a  
layaway plan.

Festival promoters hope that two concert-industry truisms hold for the  
summer. First, that at a time when the average ticket price for a  
major touring act is nearly $67, fans will be attracted to the value  
of 100-plus acts for four or so times that amount; and second, that  
the lure of a blue-chip headliner will be enough to overcome  
customers’ frugality.

At Coachella, that strategy seemed to be working. Many fans said they  
were feeling the economic pinch but had made sacrifices elsewhere in  
their budgets specifically to attend the festival. . . .