Back in 2006, Spotify was a nascent start-up, your common stateside live performance tickets went for $40 and lots of followers realized about the perfect new music from blogs like All Things Go.
Nearly twenty years later, most individuals discover new artists by way of algorithms and the common U.S. live performance ticket prices $250 — double what it was simply 5 years in the past.
All Things Go, nevertheless, has grown right into a thriving indie music pageant in a world the place stay occasions are more and more owned by a handful of corporations.
Now in its ninth 12 months, the pageant — whose identify derives from a Sufjan Stevens lyric — embodies the identical ethos as that of music running a blog’s turn-of-the-millennium heyday.
It focuses on rising artists whereas prioritizing the expertise of stay efficiency over creating viral moments or interesting to social media influencers, each now dominant forces at extra corporatized festivals.
The occasion kicked off its 2023 version on Saturday at Maryland’s historic Merriweather Post Pavilion amphitheater, spanning two days for the primary time, with a women-led invoice and headliners together with Lana Del Rey, boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen and Maggie Rogers.
The pageant’s founders first started transitioning from their nook of the web to stay venues by holding month-to-month membership nights in Washington DC, internet hosting artists who have been well-liked on their weblog.
They held their inaugural pageant at Washington’s Union Market in 2014, later increasing to the Capitol Waterfront in 2016 earlier than transferring in 2021 to Merriweather, which may host as much as 20,000 folks per day.
“I think for us it really is about the music,” co-founder Stephen Vallimarescu instructed AFP. “It’s about creating the experience where you want to see the artist at noon as much as you want to see the headliner at 10:00 pm.”
And with two levels “we basically set it up so that you can see every single band on the bill.”
That’s a far cry from the expertise followers get at festivals like Coachella, the place a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals collect yearly within the California desert for 2 three-day weekends that includes dozens of artists and 6 levels, with overlapping set instances.
At that occasion, music will not be the one draw: there are large Instagrammable sculptures, a Ferris wheel, particular food and drinks points of interest, movie star and influencer-filled VIP tents and after-parties.
All Things Go’s organizers are going for a extra boutique vibe, mentioned Vallimarescu.
“It is pretty unique to look at our community — like these are music fans who go to 10, 20, 30 shows a year, and they come to the festival early,” he mentioned.
“They’re there for the music, they’re not there for Ferris wheels, or Instagram posts.”
It’s no small feat to host an impartial music pageant lately. All Things Go actually is not the one occasion of its form, however the panorama is more and more dominated by large stay efficiency promoters like AEG and Live Nation, the 2 largest on the earth.
In 2018, a bunch of indie festivals in Britain decried Live Nation’s dominance of the trade there, accusing the California-based behemoth of practices together with exclusivity offers with venues that “stifle competition.”
In 2022, Live Nation — which along with controlling important swaths of the touring trade additionally owns Ticketmaster, the American ticketing titan — recorded $16.7 billion in income, selling 43,644 occasions together with live shows and festivals worldwide, in keeping with knowledge compiled by Statista.
Most main music festivals are underneath the umbrella of Live Nation — Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Isle of Wight amongst them — or AEG, which owns the corporate behind Coachella.
Vallimarescu famous that many indie festivals folded because the efficiency trade took a serious hit, particularly post-pandemic.
“The reality is that the larger festival ecosystem is very much being consolidated,” mentioned fellow co-founder Will Suter.
“Globally it’s the reason you see kind of the same headliners across most of festival lineups these days.”
All Things Go has lasered in on indie rock, a method Suter mentioned works to assist it keep aggressive within the corporate-dominated pageant scene.
“Doubling down on our genre, and really offering value to the consumer that justifies the ticket price” is a objective, he mentioned, with the hope that followers are fascinated with 12 to 16 artists on the lineup, can really handle to see all of them, and are enticed to return again.
Tickets to All Things Go this 12 months ranged from $105 to $500, the pricier finish being heavy on perks.
The pageant has additionally stood out by reserving largely girls and non-binary artists — from the headliners down the invoice — in an trade that is nonetheless closely biased in the direction of males.
Suter praised fellow indie festivals throughout the United States “that are working day in and day out” to maintain stay music accessible and eclectic.
“It’s a community, including with shoulders to cry on,” he mentioned. “It’s cool to see different independent festivals still working.”
© 2023 AFP