Bamboozle 2023 Tour • Page 25

I just don’t know when he plans on actually selling any tickets? Like at some point you have to drop some names that are gonna drive people to attend.

 

The stupidest part of this strategy is that he needs to compete with another music festival in the same city, 3 weeks apart, focused on the same music scene. And every day that goes by without a headliner or full lineup he’s letting more ticket sales go to adjacent. Plus When We Were Young is also competition for out of state attendees.

this bizarre rollout may have worked for Boozle back in 2007, but the festival circuit is very different now.

 

I don’t want to straight up bash *all* the artists already booked for Bamboozle but Adjacent has acts booked that are either critically acclaimed or well liked by fans. People know they will see good or great sets at Adjacent. Also Paramore are a hot ticket these days, so you will get people coming just for Paramore too. Bamboozle does not really have that at all.

 

I think its the roll out that's the biggest issue and the expectations. If they billed this is as something a little more humble, smaller, and billed entirely as a young meets old

And just announced them all at once...
Blackbear, Yung Gravy, and a bunch of acts I've never heard of but I'm sure the kids love

And then
Limp bizkit, Steve Aoki, say anything, finch, saves the day, mayday parade etc

I think that's fine and makes sense. The roll out has been just outright silly

 

I think their biggest misstep is how they played with people’s expectations. Like- if it’s just a silly little fest meant for people in the tri-state area that’s okay— just make the prices sensible and don’t hype it up to be some major destination festival that’s gonna upend the music industry.

Take Four Chord or the Is For Lovers fests for example. Those went over really well, and no one ever had the illusion that they were gonna be the next When We Were Young. People don’t need every fest to be the greatest weekend of their lives- but if you promise that then you better be able to deliver.

I’m guessing either vanity or an incredible lack of self-awareness kept John D from realizing his mouth was writing checks his festival couldn’t cash.

 

Yea, the thing is (as Rmourz alludes to), even if it was billed as a smaller/more regional thing, the ticket prices are still way too freaking high to justify that. Either you bill it as this massive comeback festival and charge this much money and back it up with great bookings, or you bill it as less and charge less.

 

Instead of complaining about the quality of artists just pay the $400 and maybe you will discover new acts you like like



Just…LOL

 

This logic only works with Warped Tour. No one is gonna an ungodly amount of money for bands they never heard of

 

most of these people are making sense, he just doesn’t wanna listen. People are saying what they expected based on marketing and price and are saying the value isn’t worth the cost. John D is arguing that it is, but you can’t argue with the consumer, they will be right every time. If people don’t spend the money and don’t attend they you were wrong no matter what you think.

 

I'd be curious what like a high school scene kid things about this. Like is there a demographic excited by this? Idk maybe but it really does seem like he could not decide if he wanted to go the nostalgia route or try something completely different and so he got a lackluster version of both. And even if this is a great lineup for people under 21, that is a pretty prohibitive cost for that demographic so it still doesn't make sense. It's just kind of baffling.

 

And AC isn’t necessarily the market for them either, it’s a costly weekend outside of the ticket.

 

Yeah, people in here saying that the acts aren't good just because they've "never heard of them" are demonstrating how out of touch they are. Not to say that I'm not out of touch... I just keep quiet about it, hah!

That said: I'm still not sure any of these artists are going to drive ticket sales the way they'd need to in order for a festival like this to be profitable? I can see scenarios where it might work but it's just all... Very out of balance.

Like, you'd need undercard acts that Limp Bizkit fans would care about to justify the ticket price. Similarly, you'd need a headliner status, mid-2000s pop-punk act to make it worth it to justify that first swath of pop-punk/emo acts. The equation is out-of-whack.

I'm actually pretty convinced they do have a bigger headliner they haven't dropped yet. TBH, the approach they're taking is similar to the way Bamboozle might have done it back in the day. Back when they were literally the only major weekend festival catering to the Warped Tour/alternative/punk/whatever crowd at the time. So there wasn't much competition. But...

They're pretty much using the same approach they used back in the early days. But with a line-up that feels like it has zero curation.

And TBH, it's a bad idea because there are a bunch of festivals to contend with. Adjacent is the most direct competitor for obvious reasons, and WWYF definitely eats into the "old school Bamboozle" tone. And Sick New World is a much better deal if you're a Limp Bizkit or Attila fan, TBH...

There's also Riot Fest, who has a very well curated line-up each year that mixes genres up really well and does a great job at pairing stage headliners with undercards. If Bamboozle had any of the "pop-punk" headliners or subs that Riot had last year, the tone in this thread would be completely different.

Then there's smaller festivals that people are going to opt for instead too: South By So What, Furnace Fest, Gainesville Fest, Four Chords, and a few others. Definitely not the same "vibe," and a bit more niche. But for people who are into the pop-punk, emo, hardcore, or whatever thing? More bang for your buck there too.

There is a lot to compete with this time around.

I don't even think "young meets old" would have been the way to market this, TBH. The "old" that they're bringing to the table isn't all that exciting. And they don't really mesh well with the newer acts.

Expectation setting would temper the tone in a thread like this, but I don't know that it would have helped overall... The line-up is still lackluster and lacks cohesion for it to be a value-add for anybody compared to a regular show or any of the other festivals out there, y'know?

 

Rick Ross i think is the biggest swing and miss. A big name that i really don't think anyone sees as cool, interesting? Am I wrong? Of all the older hip hop acts, idk, rick Ross feels like a lame addition.

 

Give me a full 1.5 hour set of ICP and I'm there. Theu are so fun live. Seen them 3 times, but haven't now in over a decade. ICP and Fred Durst together is my Junior year of HS dream circa 2001. LOL

 

Wait... this festival cost almost $400? It cost around the same as a 4 day pass for Lollapalooza.

I thought tickets were around $200 lol

 

They are $325 without fees for normal tickets. Normal vip is like $900 and then other vip they have is like $1600

 

It’s crazy I paid $325 or so for first tier of vip for riot fest in 2021

 

Riot Fest is everything that The Bamboozle always wanted to be.

As for all these artists being added that us oldies never heard of but somehow have hundreds of thousands of instagram followers, just remember that followers does not equal ticket sales.
A better gauge is to throw their names into setlist.fm and see how large the venues are they typically play. Sure Blackbear has 5 million IG followers, but I don't think he's ever headlined a show that had more than 3k capacity.

 

There's still a small part of me that's holding out hope they booked stuff like Yellowcard, Academy Is, Something Corporate, Fenix Tx, Avril, Willow and The Maine to fill out the undercard. But I know I'm a dreamer.

Odds are the big announcement will be All Time Low and A Day to Remember headlining.

 

Blackbear headlined the 5,000 capacity Aragon Ballroom in Chicago recently but even so I wouldn’t consider him headliner caliber.

 

ATL and ADTR would make this more attractive, but definitely not at $325/ticket and then a ton more for an airbnb/hotel most likely. And I live in the NY area, so I can drive there.. people who need to fly will likely need to pay $1,500+ for this when considering flights, hotel, ticket, food, etc.. Hell no.

 

Their lineup page sucks and is definitely misleading. Fairly confident they haven’t actually announced any headliners yet.

 

They just posted some long rant by John D

The TLDR is:
1) He still thinks people care about wrestling, food trucks, and dance parties just as much as the actual bands at the festival
2) There are 3 headliners (one rock, one pop, one hip hop), which will be announced in phase 3 along with a ticket price jump

 

So now all 3 headliners are in phase 3? After he said a headliner would be in phase 2? Man he loves to gaslight.