![]() ![]() But I realized it’s an issue that we can’t handle the way we used to.” Even before #MeToo, Warped was run by women. ![]() But I took expert advice and now I’m more educated. “I learned a lot during that period,” said Lyman. In 2015, Warped Tour had its own pre-MeToo reckoning when Jake McElfresh, who performs as the folk-punk act Front Porch Step, played the festival after being accused of online sexual misconduct with fans (prompting one disappointed Warped veteran, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, to ask “What happened to our scene?”). The last few years of reckonings have come especially fast at Warped Tour.Īs with many music scenes, punk had longstanding issues around sexual harassment and misconduct - most recently with Brand New’s Jesse Lacey apologizing after allegations that he’d solicited nude pictures from underage fans. Today we judge on money in music, and Warped was never about that.”įor as much as Warped pioneered festival culture in the U.S., any concert that lasts this long will see change around it. When you look at the box office, Warped always had the lowest ticket prices. Now you make all your money on touring and no one can give that up. Bands would play Warped because they knew they were replenishing their audience. “But festivals are like society as a whole now: it’s all changing toward that top 10%. Sweat, crowds, down and dirty,” Lyman said. But Warped’s unlikely success with a neglected audience was a genuine revolution in American live music. Festival culture would later shift toward luxury destination packages. ![]() ![]() Lollapalooza came first, but Lyman saw something few other promoters did: that there were tons of underserved young rock fans in America, and if you brought the show to them, they’d become loyal. Bands ate from the same backstage BBQ pit. No VIP ‘influencers’ or glamping packages. The spirit will live on.”įor Lyman, who worked at Goldenvoice during its pre-Coachella days as an underground punk promoter, his model for the show was unheard of at the time: pack as many punk, metal and other rabble-rousing acts as he could on the bill, pay them just enough to pencil out with a notably low ticket price, and put them in front of markets (often rural or suburban) that major acts ignored. Warped inspired kids to pick up instruments and start bands, and If you look at Coachella, so many of their department heads started on Warped Tour. “We developed a way to reach youth and it’s been a groundbreaking platform. “I’m getting notes from people in the business saying, ‘You inspired me and showed me it was OK to be me,’ or that ‘I went to Warped where there were only 2,000 people there but I’ve never felt more energy at a show,’” he said. 5 in West Palm Beach, Fla., he was seeming relieved, melancholy and hopeful. As preparations were underway for Warped’s final run, which begins June 21 in Pomona and concludes Aug. Evolving standards around diversity and #MeToo led to some soul-searching behind the scenes, especially after an artist was accused of misconduct while on Warped Tour.įounder Kevin Lyman’s legacy as a pioneer of American festival culture is indisputable, however. But as tastes, values and the music economy changed, Warped’s model of cheap tickets, scruffy amenities and a genre mix that waxed and waned in fashion seemed to run its natural course. ![]()
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