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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
by Mike Diver
Posted: 22 Jun '04, 13:56
You what? Festival with frigging brilliant line-up can't sell enough tickets?? Lollapalooza cancelled...
Today our faith in humanity is once again in question - well, when we say humanity, we mean America, which as self-styled world (lost) leaders we must all bow down to and see as supreme. All hail.
Organisers of this year's Lollapalooza Festival have confirmed that the 31-date travelling event will not happen this year.
Poor ticket sales have led to the decision. The festival's promoters stood to lose millions of dollars if they'd gone ahead with the festival.
The festival's co-founder, Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction, stated: "My heart aches along with the bands and all of our employees, whose hard work developed one of the most exciting and important tours that this nation was to see. My heart is broken."
Fellow co-founder Marc Geiger stated that Lollapalooza was not alone in experiencing low ticket sales - US tours by Norah Jones and Dave Matthews have apparently suffered too, possibly/probably due to high ticket prices (although tickets for Lollapalooza started from $15).
DiScuss: How much is too much? When will there be a proper festival as great as Lollapalooza in the UK? Was 31-dates just a bit too ambitious?
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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
When will high ticket prices become an issue in the UK? They have risen WAY beyond inflation in the last three years since (in particular) the rise of popularity in festivals, and people like me are being priced out. I can afford a few things if I scrimp and save, but I used to be able to go to anything I wanted... and I earned less then.-
Re: Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
There's something on today's Planet Sound news on C4 teletext saying the office of fair trading are investigating ticket prices...-
Re: Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
about fucking time.
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The price of gigs is getting ridiculous. I hope the office of Fair Tradining investigation comes down hard on the industry. The whole industry is getting greedy and it's getting to the point where I'm having to say No to seeing favourite bands...and I earn ok money too.
Promoters have got wise to investing in online ticket agencies...perfect for those gigs where you haven't a chance of getting a ticket any other way. So they get part of the booking fee as well as per ticket, on top of their percentage of the door or whatever.
Venues like the Royal Festival Hall charge virtually nothing (in comparison) and offer refund schemes if you can't go...comfy seats too.
I don't mind paying so much for festivals where there's a good chance of seeing a load of good bands per day. But what REALLY bugs me is having to pay extra to find out what time the fucking bands are on at. Glastonbury and ATP excepted.
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I don't know where they got tickets start at $15. I bought 2 tickets to lollapalooza & it was $134. That's a ridiculous amount of money for a concert. And my $18.90 clear channel service fee won't even be refunded! I paid $18.90 to be disappointed.
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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
It's definitely about time tickets for festivals should come down, and beer prices should also be looked into - i think it's fucking disgraceful how we get prayed upon by the drinks companys because there's normally not any competition or choice!-
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noone forces you to buy a ticket and nobody forces you to buy the beer, though.-
Re: Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
Isn't that a little bit apathetic though ? Sigur Ros played over here twice in the space of 3 months two years aga and charged £23 - £25 per gig. Thats wrong. Ive paid over the odds plenty o times, but I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to. Others aren't.-
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Yeah, but it's Sigur Ros and at the time I bet it was costing them loads to come over and play and they probably weren't making any more.
I'd pay £25 to see Sigur Ros, especially if it was at Union Chapel or the Barbican. But then, I'd probably pay £500 to fly Iceland to see them. Such a band.
But yeah, £25 is waaay too much for tickets, especially when you then have to pay £12 for a small round of drinks.
£105 for festival tickets, when there's only about 2 bands who're special enough to warrant that fee and they usually play sub-standard sets, whilst the rest of the fest is made up of a lot of overhyped arse bands, and most of the good new acts play to buggerall people and get no support from the festival itself to direct people in there to discover new music. Where's the value for money when the programme is another £12 and it doesn't tell you, I dunno, that in '98 Idlewild were the best new band in britian and opening the Radio1 stage? People need guidance. We at least try to help and would give out free guides if it wasn't the kinda thing that'd get us in serious trouble... -
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People keep calling me a pathetic ... but they never finish the sentence. What is it I'm supposedly a pathetic example of?!
Um, you're right of course. But I was looking at it from the point of view of the industry, defending themselves to the Office Fair Trading. Surely, in this supposedly free(ish) economy the market dictates the prices of the tickets?
Mind you, once you're inside the drinks (especially soft drinks at summer festivals) should be priced reasonably, which they quite clearly aren't at the moment. But the ticket prices I think we're stuck with.-
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There isn't much of a 'market' when about 2 different promoters divy up the festival scene between them and there is no competition on price.
Also the 'free market' doesn't work at all if people are continually being misled, esp by things like booking fees and gig guides which should be included in the price. Frankly, if a festival ticket is stated to be £100 in large print on the posters, but the only way you can actually get a ticket is to pay an extra £6 to ticketmaster, then the advertsing is not so much "misleading" as "lying" - the OFT should nail Mean Fiddler et al for that alone.
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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
What about a system where everyone pays one big sum and gets tickets, food, drinks, whatever free (to a certain point)? And Sean said that he 'would get in serious trouble for handing out free guides'. How come? I just don't know much about festival management and that sort of thing and how the companies run them.
By the way, who owns/runs T In the park?
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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
Timothy, he said it was APATHETIC, y'know apathy? Lack of motivation? Total-can't-be-arsed-ness? No A pathetic example of something.
This is a shame, altho did janes addiction headline every year or do they just organise it?-
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i didn't actually think anyone would fall for that, but well done all the same.
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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
it's strange how ticket prices are almost never proportional to talent, it's only hyped-ness: for example, i saw explosions in the sky at norwich arts centre for 7 quid, and yet reel big fish (i think it was) were charging something like 20quid. unbelieveable. -
Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
i am 99% sure that janes addiction headline every year,
i don't think that 31 dates for lollapalooza is too much, considering there are 51 states in America and each state is a similar size, it would be like playing each country in europe once, the department of trade are not investigating ticket prices but are investigating booking fee's instead. -
Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
festival tickets have gone up by about £20 in the past 5 years? which in my opinion about 10 pounds too much, its alright to have a little rise each year (maybe £1-2) but what would be better if festivals were to freeze their ticket price for say 5 years then putting it up in the 6th year (by say £5-20), then freezing the price again for 5 years. personally i think over £100 a ticket is too much for a festival.
as for normal gigs i reckon id pay £20+ for a gig but only if the band was excpetionally good. £10-15 is a reasonable price for a gig for me, as long as i know who the are and im sure i might like them.
if i was going to see a small band who i didnt know much about i dont think id pay more than £10. unless certain media said they were really good.-
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exactly.
i've been going to reading for 5 or 6 years now, and while you do expect the prices to go up a bit [i'm not entirely sure why, but there you are], i definitely remember paying..what... £78 in 1999 for a weekend ticket? this year i paid somewhere in the region of £112, give or take agency fee.
i go to very few large gigs, because i'm simply not prepared to pay £15 for an astoria show or nearly [even sometimes more than] £20 for a brixton academy show, when what's on offer isn't worth that money - even if the band put on a cracking show, you've got the issues of frequently poor sound, expensive drinks, and the fact that - is this just me?? - shows seem to be finishing earlier these days. isis at the mean fiddler a year ago finished stupidly early - the band themselves were getting hurried out of the venue at just gone 10pm, and the same has happened many a time elsewhere over the past year or so.
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Living outside London and having a last train home at 1135, the finishing early is definitely a good thing -
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you're not joking about finish times, im sure about 3or 4 years ago you could be in time for a gig at 9pm and still see one support. but the last few gigs ive been to had the main support on at 8, and i even missed mclusky headlining last year having turned up at 9:30. fucking ridiculous. (unless youre at school i suppose)-
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i think it soley depends on the venue, but at the uea most main acts start between 9-945, with both supports doing a 15-30 minute set each from 745ish to 9, its been like that (i think) since 99. i think there is legal issues (with noise and stuff, but i could be wrong) that mean the music has to finish by 11.
ive only been gigging since 99, so i wouldnt know much before that, but i think i got into glastonbury free that year as under 14's got in free with a paying adult. even then glastonbury tickets for adults were only £80-90.
maybe in certain populated areas the venues (particuarly pubs/barflys) have to cut the noise by say 1030? which isnt all together ridiculous, as the houses dont really wont 100s of people pouring onto the street outside their house at 1130-1200. but having said that the people in those houses should move if they dont like a venue being near them.
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am i drunk or reading this wrong, did you mean 100 euros for a festival ticket? lollapalooza backstage passes routinely get offered for for over$600.00 u.s, but that would be unreal.
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Lollapalooza Festival cancelled
Morrissey was supposed the be there wasnt he? Maybe everyone heard his new album just as they were... about... to... buy... their... tickets...
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