The Decline And Fall Of The Festival Empire...

Seems music festivals in the US are going the same way as their British counterparts according to Ms Lipton of the Harvard Crimson: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524103&disqus_reply=2503736#dsq-alerts.

So what happens next?

Well, many of the small festivals that have sprung up over the past few years, in what seems like a reaction to the large corporation dominated events, are going to have a tough time next year. The sheer amount of these small festivals has meant that they aren't selling out, which has led to several of these festivals being cancelled, Hampshire's Blissfields and Somerset's Sunrise being two of note.

This trend can't be blamed solely on a saturation of the market however. Severe weather conditions, the 'credit crunch', to give it it's snappy title, and general organisational disasters have also been cited as reasons for the sudden wave of cancellations and postponements this year.

I don't know firsthand how 'corporate' these festivals have bocome in America, but watching footage from the AT&T sponsored Bonnaroo this year and the same company's blatant censoring of anti-establishment lyrics sung by Eddie Vedder last year, I have to admit that the future doesn't look too bright.

Back home things don't seem quite so bad. Reading this year was excellent, with a re-united Rage and a re-energised Metallica bookending the headline spots over a weekend of complete wreckage and mayhem. A nice surprise this year was the absence of a sponsor. Piss strength 'session beer' Carling has sponsored the Reading and Leeds festivals since recent memory, and a lack of corporate direction has only allowed organser Mitch Benn put on undoubtedly the best festival of the year.

Would Zack De La Rocha's 10 minute political rant have been televised if they'd played 'Reading Festival, Brought to you by British Petroleum'? Fuck that, they wouldn't have even been invited. We'd see 'safe' headliners like Scouting For Girls, The Kooks, or uh...The Killers... Wait... Hang on... they did get the sound right for The Killers...

Still, if does all go tits up, the festival industry as a whole implodes and even Glastonbury is cancelled, take a trip to a cold, wet field in the middle of Salisbury plain next midsummers night, and experience what I consider the original and best event in the hippie calendar, Stonehenge.