Tagged: festivals
The festival season is around the corner!
If you’re a rocker and you live in Europe – you might already have planned to attend one of the many summer rock festivals. It’s become a tradition.
I started going in 1993. I think my very first rock festival was the Danish Midtfyn festival. Lots of great bands: Mr Big, Whitesnake, Therapy, Jimmy Barnes, 4 Non Blondes, Sass Jordan, Johnny Cash…. It was great, I spent half my time writing articles and reviews in the press area, and the other half at press conferences or checking out bands. But what I remember the most about that festival, is why I chose to never ever stay in a TENT at a festival….EVER.
I barely slept a wink in three days. People were loud and drunk – and tents aren’t soundproof… The Germans next to us kept singing their German drinking-songs, and the more they drank – the louder their “singing” became. After ALL these years, I still remember the song they kept singing, over and over: “Jawohl, jawohl, jaaaah-woooohl, wir lieben Alkohol, wir haben keine Wasser so wir trinken Alkohol – jawohl jawohl….“. Probably way off with the spelling but you get the general idea… :)
Personally, I never drink at festivals. There are a few reasons for that.
1. Music is my drug. Nothing makes me feel better than that. As nerdy as that sounds. :)
2. If I want to stand in the front row, I can’t leave it just cause I need to pee. I only drink a little bit of water, just what’s absolutely necessary, so that I sweat it out rather than having to stand in line for the yucky toilets.
3. Since I don’t live in a tent, I usually drive to a hotel, a friend’s house or home after the evening’s last band. No drinking & driving.
4. It’s tough in the front row – I need my strength to fight off assholes, can’t make myself drunk and powerless in those situations.
5. I’m just simply a music nerd who prefers to get drunk elsewhere, not at a festival :)
I’m one of those who plans which bands I’m gonna see months ahead, I create my own personal schedule and print it, I already have it all planned, how to get from stage A to stage B (to stage C and to stage D….). I know if it’s a band where I absolutely NEED to be front row (requires a few hours extra to make sure) or if it’s a band that I’ll only watch a few songs of from afar before heading off to see another show.
All those logistics are already planned pretty much into detail when I get to the festival area. The only thing that ISN’T planned, is how to fit in the press conferences, cause usually those are subject to change or improvisation.
A festival to me – is ALL about the MUSIC. I forget to eat and drink sometimes. I don’t care what others are planning to do there, I have my plan, and if it fits theirs – perfect! :) If not – I’ll see you somewhere out there or after the show. But nothing is going to change my band schedule. Unless the band totally sucks of course.
I make sure I sleep in a REAL bed after a long day of walking around in a dusty field, I make sure I get a nice shower and a real breakfast before heading off to the next day’s festival.
Since Sweden Rock started, I’ve only missed it ONCE, and that was because I was living in the States. Other than that, nothing has ever stopped me.
Last year was pretty horrible and I most likely wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t felt that I HAD to because I had a friend visiting me who came for the festival. My father had passed away only a few days before, I was still in shock, I remember just walking around there like in a dream, it was all so unreal. All these happy people, all the things I loved so much, but the one person that I loved more than anything in the world, my dad, was gone. Just like that. To this day I can’t believe I managed to review a few bands in that state. :-/
Today I’m glad that I forced myself to go. I somehow got right back in the saddle, I had no time to drown in my own grief, I turned it around, and the festival became a part of the healing process in some strange way.
It’s like a home. Sweden Rock to me, is HOME. All the things I love are right there. Far away from the “real world”, 24/7 pure, concentrated rock’n’roll, that live concert energy that can’t be explained unless you’ve experienced it, all those people who are “my kind” – who are there for basically the same reason… Thousands of people with the same love for rock’n’roll. Friends I only see once a year, at the festival. The whole atmosphere that charges my batteries like nothing else.
All those things are enough to make me feel high. The last place on earth where I would ever need alcohol, is at a festival. I’m already so high on everything else, that it would just be a waste of money.
I spoke to guy who was shocked to hear that I didn’t drink and “party” at festivals. He spent a week at Roskilde festival last year… and only saw 2 bands. I’m not quite sure what he did with his time, but he mentioned something about weed, getting high, getting drunk, throwing up, passing out, drifting around the area…. And he was happy doing that. He called it “festival life” and that was HIS idea of a good festival. Fair enough. He’s not the only one.
What festival-type are YOU? And which festival is your favorite?
YouTube is your friend, not your enemy
“We are against YouTube. We don’t like it.”
Those words were uttered by a musician a while ago, and if there had been more time, I would have loved to discuss that further.
Every successful business spends a lot of time and money on understanding their customers. A band or an artist is most definitely a business – and a tough one to be in too. You need to understand the mentality of your customers, i.e the fans.
Unfortunately, many artists seem to be stuck in the 80’s and the 80’s way of thinking. It’s 2013 – the minute you choose to get your ass up on a stage, you will end up on YouTube – if you’re lucky. Even back in the hayday of the glorious movie stars in the 50’s and 60’s they knew that ALL publicity was GOOD publicity.
You’ve got a crowd of a few hundred or a few thousand people with cellphones and built-in cams or little compact cameras with HD-video, in front of you. What’s the smartest thing to do? Thinking of it as a threat or using it to your own benefit? There is an old saying that goes – If you can’t beat them – Join them.
Every smart artist nowadays will do the latter. Even those who were initially against YouTube have now realized that it’s a powerful marketing-tool. If you’re not on YouTube – you simply don’t exist.
The more videos a band has on that thing, the more popular they will seem, because nobody’s gonna waste time and effort filming and sharing a boring, uninteresting band. It’s a compliment that someone has taken time from their concert-experience, to share it with others.
Cause unlike records, a live-experience can’t be copied. You can’t distribute and share the feeling and the buzz of being in a crowd, that true live-experience that people pay tons of money for. The ONE thing that artists today actually CAN make money from, if they know how to do it properly.
So, a fan-filmed YouTube-video should be looked at as a PR-video for the NEXT show a band is gonna do. I’ve had people commenting or e-mailing on my videos, saying that the show I filmed looked so awesome that they’ve decided to go see the band when they’re playing in their town.
Being the one uploading live-vids, I’m not making ANY benefit from it whatsoever. I’ve not made as much as a penny doing that. But the bands – as much as they may be bitching about it (some of them) HAVE.
Most of them are probably even totally unaware of the two or three extra people that bought a ticket to their next show, based on a live clip they saw on YouTube. But those three people may be the ones telling THEIR friends about the kickass band they saw last night! That’s the way it works.
Blackie Lawless (W.A.S.P) has always been against cameras at his shows. But a few years ago, at a press-conference at Sweden Rock Festival, he had to admit that there’s no point trying to fight it. Instead, he had chosen to subscribe to the Grateful Dead-way of thinking.
Now THERE’s an interesting band to take a look at from a marketing point of view.
There is too much to say about how they’ve profited BIG TIME on allowing fans to participate in the live-experience of the band. I suggest you Google it, it’s pretty interesting actually.
Grateful Dead were early pioneers of “how to let fans have your music for free and still make a profit”. They even let fans plug right into their soundboards.
To learn more – go check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520
What are some of the marketing lessons that businesses can learn from The Grateful Dead?
Brian: The fundamental assumption in almost every band’s business model was that they were going to make their money on album sales. The Grateful Dead rejected that assumption. Their fundamental business model was based on making money from the concerts.Because of that change, there was a cascade of decisions that fell from that. For instance, each concert was completely unique night-after-night, so there was a strong incentive to see them for several nights in a row – this ultimately led to fans following them around the country.
In addition, they allowed their fans to make tapes of the concerts and freely spread them to their fans – the more concerts they played, the more tapes there were, the more people were exposed to the music, the more people paid for concert tickets.
David: The Grateful Dead let their audience define the Grateful Dead experience. Concerts were a happening, a destination where all 20,000 or more audience members were actually part of the experience.
Making fans an equal partner in a mutual journey, the Grateful Dead teaches us that our community defines who we are. In an era of instant communications on Twitter, blogs and the like, we learn that companies cannot force a mindset on their customers.
Not that I’m a big fan of the Grateful Dead, but they definitely knew what they were doing.
Going back to the musician who was saying that he didn’t like YouTube because he had no control over what was being distributed and he couldn’t edit it and such… That’s all just an ego-thing. I understand it, I don’t like people taking pics of me where I look goddamn awful, uploading it to their Facebooks and Instagrams. I have no control over that either. It’s a pain in the ass. But I’m not an artist who has chosen to be looked at/listened to.
If the bands think of YouTube as a threat because they have no control, I don’t see why they don’t simply TAKE control?!
Unless they give people an ALTERNATIVE, people will go to the “unofficial” material, cause there’s nothing else to choose from.
Why not bring someone on tour who’s good at filming and editing – who they can “control” – open a YouTube-channel called XXX On Tour 2013 – watch it here! And put good quality videos up there regularly?
Maybe even take a small fee for letting people download these good quality clips each day? I for one would prefer that anytime, to the crappy iPhone-videos with horrible audio that people upload on YouTube.
I’m far from a pro, but I feel that the least I can do for a band and their fans, is to provide videos with decent audio. At least as decent as you can get with the size and type of cameras you’re allowed to use without getting into trouble with security.
GRASPOP festival did a great thing last year – filming every day, then uploading it within 24 hours – great quality, multi-cam footage! Who’s gonna want to watch something that’s not as good, when there’s the real deal?!
My point is – instead of being uncomfortable with the evolution in social media, USE it wisely and let it work for you. I don’t see the point bitching about something when you’re not providing an alternative.
Being in a band today means you’re up against tough competition. The more you’re seen and heard, the more likely that you’re going to survive – it’s ALL about keeping your name and reputation alive.
YouTube is a big part of that.
Message to bands: Be creative and proactive – YouTube is your friend, not your enemy! :)
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 