For the first year, the music festival Austin City Limits duplicated its lineup for 2 consecutive weekends, just like Coachella! But was it a good idea? It works pretty well for the California festival, it’s a boom for the local economy, right? But it seems there were some problems in the case of ACL.
The original ticket price was $225, but for some obscure reasons, there were plenty of passes for sell on Craiglist for the second weekend and the prices were very low, half price, even as low as $75, or even lower according to some blogs! Thus it seems it was really a good deal to wait till the end, and I suppose that the scalpers were the total losers in the story.
However the promoters of the festival had nothing to complain about, tickets for the second weekend sold out at full price, it was only the second-hand market which crashed,… but why? It’s still a mystery to me, but some assume it was because of the only option on sale this year was a 3-day admission. Three days is a lot of music, and a lot of commitment so it’s possible that many people had to change their plan? Economists suggest that, even though the festival didn’t suffer at all this year, it is not a good sign, as it is obviously a sign of decreasing demand. Plus customers of the first weekend must have been extremely mad to have paid full price, I wouldn’t have been happy!
To top everything, the performances of the third day (Sunday) of the second weekend had to be cancelled because of heavy rain, a partial refund (33%) has been offered to festival-goers and we have to wonder whether people who had already paid their tickets way under the face value didn’t receive more money than they paid in the first place! An Austin reporter, Michael Cocoran tweeted: ‘C3 is looking at over $5 million in ticket refunds for canceled Sunday. Hope they had rain insurance. Next year’s dates: Oct. 3-5, 10-12’, ‘Acts still get paid, in case you’re wondering. That’s another $2 million, I’m guessing. There’s $175 million economic impact, so lots lose’, so not a good thing at all…
Among the artists that canceled: acts like Atoms for Peace, Franz Ferdinand ,which booked shows in intimate venues, but Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos almost lose it when his band had serious difficulties to find a venue whereas Neko Case couldn’t find a place at all.
So is booking a second week really a good idea for festivals? It probably depends, Coachella is a very hyped event and it works for them, but ACL? Anyhow, if I were going to this kind of events I would largely prefer to go to the first week, nobody wants to go to a repeat, as there is something quite unique about a music festival; the second week, some of the magic is kind of gone.