A problem I see right now is the hype of a lot of things. Many festivals are mainly following different hypes of bands that will never last instead of presenting things that they would take a chance on but still be confident that their audience would like.

A very good example of this was NoNoNo. A totally overhyped band that a festival with no knowledge actually would book. The band broke through a campaign in just part of USA getting some radio airplay. That lead to a frenzy with the labels and bidding war. Then when the winning label saw what they had signed they immediately took off all spending on that band. So it was already from the start a hype thing.

The problem with the festivals is that they are not in this world. So they started to book this band. And to tell the truth the whole thing smelled bad, the live show sucked and they were famous for one song. I even warned some festivals to not take them in considering there was no backup moneywise. Several festivals went on the minefield that the band canceled gigs since they couldn’t afford to get there. Second several festivals got the band but the audience lacked out and they were not happy with it.

Right now I usually check if the festival had NoNoNo on the bill. Then I know if they have a curated program or just follow the latest trend of crap bands that are presented by bigger labels.