One question has bothered us at Music Times since huge music festivals such as Coachella and Austin City Limits have started adding second weekends that feature almost the exact same lineup: What do the bands do in between? This was a question more seriously addressed at the Billboard Touring Conference & Awards this week.
Sure, the paydays are great for headliners willing to play two shows, says Billions booking agency president David Viecelli, but it comes at a cost for smaller acts.
"[Headliners] can afford to say we're just gonna relax at a resort in between the two weekends," he said. "But for the vast majority of the bands at the middle level and below, you just can't support the number of shows those artists are trying to put on in between the two weekends, because none of those are the best markets in the country to begin with."
For example, small acts that open a festival such as Austin City Limits can try to schedule a few gigs around Texas but even huge cities such as Dallas don't have enough venues to support all those acts trying to squeeze in a local week of touring.
The conversation then turned from whether double-weekend festivals were bad for small acts to whether festivals in general were good for small acts. Publicists and record labels like the attention that a spot at Bonnaroo might get for an up-and-coming act but many managers point out that some opening sets at something such as Lollapalooza (which your correspondent saw firsthand this summer) are nearly empty, with maybe 30 fans showing up. It's great for the fan to say "hey I saw so-and-so before they got big," but the actual publicity value of such a small turnout is debatable, sometimes not worth the gas it takes to get there.
Totally related side note: Check out Oyinda, one of the aforementioned openers at Lollapalooza this year. Excellent performance even if just a few people were there to see it.
