Let’s face it folks, times are a little tough right now when it comes to spending your hard earned cash on anything not considered a necessity. The problem for the Big Dog is live music is a necessity! Now since I cannot see every single concert during the year that I want, I have learned what a great value the music festival can be. Allow the Big Dog to prove his point why you should invest in a concert festival or two … or many this summer.
ECONOMICS!
This is the easy “selling” point of the whole process! Let’s think about this logically. You figure an average cost of a ticket for a one-off concert is around $40. That price obviously goes up or down depending on the cailber and popularity of the artist, as well as the venue. The price of a ticket for a concert at a small nightclub will run less than one at a big venue. Many times you may have two, sometimes three bands at a concert of this nature.
Compare that to the price of a festival ticket. When the Big dog traveled to the Coachella Valley for this year’s Coachella Festival, I spent $308.30 for tickets for all three days. “Holy cow!”, you might say. But let us break that down. Three days of music, starting around 2:00pm each day and running until approximately midnight. In three days there were a total of 131 artists! Do the math people, that is $2.53 per artist!
Now, at these festivals there are generally multiple stages, so the artists are split up. For example, at Coachella and the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO, five stages are used. Since music is ongoing, sets will overlap one another, which does mean you will not have an opportunity to see every artist.
The math still works! I was able to attend Coachella two of the three days, so breaking up the cost of the tickets I realistically spent $205.54. In those two days I saw at least a part of 17 different sets. That means I paid $12.09 per band!
QUANTITY!
C’mon folks, this reason is a bigger no-brainer than the financial side of things! These multi-day festivals provide fans with a staggering quantity of great artists. At a festival like Coachella, it is actually of case of having to choose which artist to see over which artist to miss. Friday evening at Coachella was especially tough. Imagine the dilemma I was in from 7:30pm on that evening:
- 7:30-8:30pm = Leonard Cohen at the Outdoor Theatre
- 7:50-8:40pm = Ghostland Observatory at the Sahara Tent
- 8:30-9:30pm = Morrissey at the Coachella Stage
- 9:00-9:50pm = Girl Talk at the Sahara Tent
- 9:05-9:55pm = Silversun Pickups at the Outdoor Theatre
- 9:45-10:35pm = A Place to Bury Strangers at the Gobi Tent
- 10:00=1:00am = Paul McCartney at the Coachella Stage
- 10:10-11:00pm = The Presets at the Sahara Tent
- 11:25-whenever = Crystal Method at the Sahara Tent
Are you kidding me? But let’s face it, what a great “problem”, that many great artists within a 5 1/2 hour time frame, and that was just Friday night.
WHY ELSE SHOULD I GO THE FESTIVAL ROUTE?
Go to a regular concert and what else is there to do other than watch the show? Let’s see, there are the concession stands, the t-shirt booth … wow, that may be it.
Festivals usually have several cool extras to check out when you want a break from the music. Monolith had several great booths from different indie record labels and radio stations, and a meet-and-greet booth where several of the artists did signings. There was a tent with computers inside linked to a website that allowed you to create your own mix tape and send the link to your personal email.
Coachella boasts some very cool artwork, most of it done in pretty massive scope, plus in 2009 had a tent, courtesy of ZIA Records, selling merchandise in celebration of Record Store Day, a tent that gave you access to re-charge that cell phone of yours and a dance tent sponsored by KROQ from Los Angeles. The Globe greets all festival go-ers at the entrance and comes to life in the evening. Several different DJ’s spin tunes for Coachella attendees interested in getting down and dancing until the wee hours of the morning.
Best of all, the festival environment promotes a strong sense of community. Everyone is mellow and having a great time. The world’s problems do not matter during this brief time you have to focus on music. People from opposite ends of the country have an opportunity to make new friends with others from every point of the globe.
You can’t beat it! Concert festivals are an absolute blast. The Big Dog HIGHLY recommends you attending at least one festival this summer and see for yourself why this is a great entertainment option.
Make your research easy. Check out the RazorGator page for music festivals and see for yourself how many great options there are around the country.
Enjoy the festivities!
The Big Dog
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