Sales are slow this year! WTF?

[Matticus]

id love for Reading to take a different approach and be a bit more credible i the light of poor ticket sales this year. What with V and other festivals taking the mainstream by the throat Reading should stick to a more diverse alternative line up

My idea set of Headliners would be

Pixies

The Cure

Neil Young

Throw in sets from Sonic Youth, Weezer, QOTSA, Battles, Dinosaur Jr and more i think you'd suddenly get the attention of the 20 somethings + who have been marginalised by all the shitty pop stuff that seems to clog the live music circuit these days

[Benj]

id love for Reading to take a different approach and be a bit more credible i the light of poor ticket sales this year. What with V and other festivals taking the mainstream by the throat Reading should stick to a more diverse alternative line up

My idea set of Headliners would be

Pixies

The Cure

Neil Young

Throw in sets from Sonic Youth, Weezer, QOTSA, Battles, Dinosaur Jr and more i think you'd suddenly get the attention of the 20 somethings + who have been marginalised by all the shitty pop stuff that seems to clog the live music circuit these days

[Matticus]

if those bands played today then yes it would. but if it had a decent undercard then im sure it would sell well. If you chucked any of those bands in with the bands currently playing , then yeah the crowd would be tiny as the demographic would be different.

Those bands can and have headlined major gigs in the past, so the demand is there, its just attracting the fans to reading

[rexclark]

With Festival Republic having Lattitude as well it means that the R&L line up will be aimed at a younger audience as they have Lattitude for the mid twenties and older bracket. I still hope that R&L will have a good mix of old and new, I thought last year had it just right.

[harderfaster]

Any one of those three would be fantastic, but all three at once would be a serious change in direction for the festival, and one which they're not going to make.

[Benj]

if those bands played today then yes it would. but if it had a decent undercard then im sure it would sell well. If you chucked any of those bands in with the bands currently playing , then yeah the crowd would be tiny as the demographic would be different.

Those bands can and have headlined major gigs in the past, so the demand is there, its just attracting the fans to reading

Edited May 7, 2011 by Benj

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

All 200 of them. The gaff would be half empty with that line up, whatever your opinion on the bands.

[Benj]

Hahaha, no it wouldn't! It would sell out on the day it went on sale. The fact ATP appears to be stopping, Glasto's not on next year, Latitude appears to be moving away slightly from its roots, means any line-up like that, would attract massive interest, and take it back to its routes, redefine it as an alternative festival, and really put it in competition with Glasto.

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

Believe me, a line up solely consisting if those bands is not going to sell out 180,000 tickets

Using the fact that ATP seems to be stopping is not the best reason to suggest that a similar line up would be able to sell out a festival at least 18x bigger!!

Latitude has a capacity of around 25,000 roughly an 1/8th the size of Reading and Leeds, I'm sure those bands alone could sell out that no problem at all, they're not going to sell out Reading and Leeds, no chance.

Edited May 9, 2011 by JC-Mo'Fucka

[Matticus]

ATP is only stopping the May festival as its too expensive to run and doesn't sell as well as the christmas ones. and besides the December ones usually get the better line up anyways.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Believe me, a line up solely consisting if those bands is not going to sell out 180,000 tickets

Using the fact that ATP seems to be stopping is not the best reason to suggest that a similar line up would be able to sell out a festival at least 18x bigger!!

Latitude has a capacity of around 25,000 roughly an 1/8th the size of Reading and Leeds, I'm sure those bands alone could sell out that no problem at all, they're not going to sell out Reading and Leeds, no chance.

[Benj]

It would bring back a hell of a lot of the "lost" R+L crowd.

[thetime]

Are people suggedting the cure, pixies wouldnt sell more tickets than mcr/pulp?

[2rare2die]

Are people suggedting the cure, pixies wouldnt sell more tickets than mcr/pulp?

[Justiceforcedave]

For one year perhaps, whilst alienating the core demographic

Reading has never been aimed at an older crowd, why do it now, just because you and a few thousand other people wouldn't mind listening to some bands who have made nothing new of any note for ten years +!!

What happens the following year? Same bands playing the same setlist?

I'm probably around the same age as you, I'd guess (34), I couldn't think of a worse change for reading than having a nostalgia fest, loads of old fellas nodding their heads to a song made 15 years ago.

Fair play give these bands slots (I believe they do), the balance is right though, the 'lost' crowd have been lost because they didn't move on, the fest did, because it needed to stay relevant and stay alive

[jordanuk90]

2005 looked a sweet lineup

[2rare2die]

My main memory of Leeds '05 was being laid outside the lock-up, drunk, listening to Bad Religion, when somebody accidentally (i hope!) kicked my jd and coke all over me lol. That and paying someone £1 to roll down the hill in the campsite. Good friday and saturday all in all (the sunday was spent throwing up due to food poisoning so i'm discounting that day from the festival!)

Edited May 10, 2011 by 2rare2die

[rexclark]

The thing is, in 05 the crowd for Pixies was pretty small. This was because everyone left after The Killers to go see Kasabian. Same thing happened two years later with The Smashing Pumpkins, everyone went to see The Klaxons. Festival Republic have ice there fingers burned a few times booking older acts. Yes the festivals sold out but they were stronger overall when you look back. You can see why they aren't too keen on booking more classic acts even though personally I wish they would.

[Benj]

Of course baring in mind that this is 2005...surely this lineup strikes a balance between the old and the new? In answer to another question, if the Pixies and the Cure were on this years lineup somewhere I would have bought my tickets on ticket day. I've gone to reading every year since 2003 and sadly this year they've lost me because there's just nothing on there to really get my blood pumping.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

For one year perhaps, whilst alienating the core demographic

Reading has never been aimed at an older crowd, why do it now, just because you and a few thousand other people wouldn't mind listening to some bands who have made nothing new of any note for ten years +!!

What happens the following year? Same bands playing the same setlist?

I'm probably around the same age as you, I'd guess (34), I couldn't think of a worse change for reading than having a nostalgia fest, loads of old fellas nodding their heads to a song made 15 years ago.

Fair play give these bands slots (I believe they do), the balance is right though, the 'lost' crowd have been lost because they didn't move on, the fest did, because it needed to stay relevant and stay alive

[Benj]

As shown though, the current core demographic have already been alienated.

[rexclark]

This was true but I don't think it should put them off.

Pixies still got a respectable headline crowd, and Kasabain got the next big thing crowd. Ditto for Pumpkins, but by booking both and giving such good alternatives they catered for two demographics really really really well. I think the approach of super-serving the Younger demographic has risks of it's own and I think finding a balance and booking bands like Pixies does have a benefit.

Sadly at the moment the reunion/classic bands aren't around the the next big things aren't really that big. As I still say the industry should pick up and solve his problem for Reading but in the time being, I think keeping older fans sweet is always a smart idea, and broadening your appeal in subtle ways is always worth doing.

[mrtourette]

There are aspects of the line-up that cater for the last generation. The Strokes, Pulp, Jane's Addiction, The Offspring and Deftones all have decent slots and have all been around for long enough for those in their 30's to have been around when they were in their late teens and early twenties, and even bands like The National and Elbow who have only had exposure and success relatively recently are still the type of bands that can appeal to older and younger fans. It just seems that while the logic and theory behind it is obvious there are different/better/more popular bands that FR could have chosen to make it reality.

[TalkShow Bob]

Every year people say the same thing - they look back at an old lineup and moan about how this lineup isnt as good as that one was. In 2005 people moaned about that lineup and now people are looking back saying it was amazing.

[Bisque]

Not sure about this but I'll throw it out there anyway...

Just thinking that sales could increase after this weekend what with R1BW having a few of R+Ls bands playing. Not sure how much exposure the event gives for the bands playing but there are always videos of the sets on the R1 website & they have been banging on about it on the radio non-stop (understandably).

Just finished watching Friendly Fires who were pretty incredible. Nero were all right, only got to see there last three songs.