Welcome to a Consequence Chat, a feature that finds Consequence staff members debating the biggest stories in pop culture. Today, we look at the shifting festival landscape, and why so many fans have expressed headliner disappointment. The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.
Wren Graves (Features Editor): Festival announcement season is in full swing, but it feels like something’s missing. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Post Malone, and Fred Again.. are headlining Bonnaroo. Boston Calling booked Ed Sheeran, Tyler Childers, and The Killers. And after a long delay, Coachella will be led by Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat, Tyler, the Creator, and a reunited No Doubt.
These are undoubtedly great artists. Apart from No Doubt, they are also familiar: I’ve seen five of them at Lollapalooza just in the last three years. And if you lurk in comment sections and message boards, you’ll encounter a lot of music festival malaise. People just don’t seem excited.
Is it just that we’re early in announcement season? Or does 2024 really feel different?
Paolo Ragusa (Associate Editor): I definitely think we’ve seen a homogenization of music festivals. I started noticing it in 2021 as pandemic restrictions began to lift — Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Remi Wolf, and Phoebe Bridgers seemed to be on every lineup card that year. But as our publisher Alex Young has pointed out, Live Nation and AEG were consolidating their festival empires years before the pandemic. The homogenization is by design, as they booked artists for packages that included three or more festival appearances.
Jonah Krueger (Editorial Coordinator): It seems like the trend of the post-pandemic festival has been to rely on the “classic” artists, as seen most prominently with last year’s Glastonbury headliners (Guns N’ Roses, Elton John, and Arctic Monkeys) and the discourse that stirred. I have a feeling people will genuinely be excited for No Doubt. It’s been almost a decade since their last show, and the novelty of that (plus “Just a Girl” live) should be able to sustain some genuine hype. As an aside, it’s heartening to see a major market festival have 75% of their headliners be female or female-fronted.
