Boomtown 2021 thread

[incident]

41 minutes ago, Sku said:

Of course, about half of the tickets are already sold, so those who already bought one last year will also have to be convinced of any change in direction.

Though to be fair, you'd imagine the partial refund will go a long way towards helping convince people, or at least stop them feeling cheated.

[jplgc]

11 minutes ago, JBarbour said:

Half of the tickets sold won't be right. There was a retention of half the tickets sold for this years event and it was nowhere near selling out. So it will be way less than half the "normal" capacity. Suppose it will depend on the capacity agreed with the local council and how flexible it is for next year. 

 

How do you know it wasn't close to selling out? Do you have a source for this?

[JBarbour]

20 minutes ago, jplgc said:

How do you know it wasn't close to selling out? Do you have a source for this?

Yes. Its not hard to work out. Tickets were still on sale. They planned on doing a stripped back event this year before all festivals starting cancelling. They are pushing their independent element and asking for support. The communication from the press team speaks volumes.

Why reduce ticket prices if you already sold half the tickets, doing a story and line up announcement for next year will sell a hell of a lot more tickets. They are also reducing the capacity. 

Most festivals teams/promoters claim a much higher uptake of tickets, so the loyalty maybe fading. You only have to look at Bestival to see the party crowd move on quickly. The festival will have to plant it's feet next year. I think you'll see more coverage from the media outlets for Boomtown over the next 6 months, just in the way they are handling communication. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by JBarbour

[jplgc]

7 minutes ago, JBarbour said:

Yes. Its not hard to work out. Tickets were still on sale. They planned on doing a stripped back event this year before all festivals starting cancelling. They are pushing their independent element and asking for support. The communication from the press team speaks volumes.

Why reduce ticket prices if you already sold half the tickets, doing a story and line up announcement for next year will sell a hell of a lot more tickets. They are also reducing the capacity. 

Most festivals teams/promoters claim a much higher uptake of tickets, so the loyalty maybe fading. You only have to look at Bestival to see the party crowd move on quickly. The festival will have to plant it's feet next year. I think you'll see more coverage from the media outlets for Boomtown over the next 6 months, just in the way they are handling communication. 

This is something I have mentioned many times to people, boomtown eventually is going to have accept some sort of commercialisation in order to survive. The 100% independent thing is not realistic in the long term, especially from a financial point of view.

The only festival that can get away with it is Glastonbury and even that isn't 100% independent despite what they try and portray

Edited September 28, 2020 by jplgc

[eFestivals]

8 minutes ago, JBarbour said:

Its not hard to work out. Tickets were still on sale.

and hadn't hit the top tier pricing.

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, jplgc said:

The 100% independent thing is not realistic in the long term, especially from a financial point of view.

uh? There's no real reason why a well-established fest like Boomtown couldn't remain independent forever, as long as it manages the financials OK.

[incident]

9 minutes ago, jplgc said:

The 100% independent thing is not realistic in the long term, especially from a financial point of view.

The only festival that can get away with it is Glastonbury and even that isn't 100% independent despite what they try and portray

Shambala (and others) would disagree.

[JBarbour]

53 minutes ago, jplgc said:

This is something I have mentioned many times to people, boomtown eventually is going to have accept some sort of commercialisation in order to survive. The 100% independent thing is not realistic in the long term, especially from a financial point of view.

The only festival that can get away with it is Glastonbury and even that isn't 100% independent despite what they try and portray

I think if Boomtown was to look for some kind of sponsorship or investment they'd have to drop the politics and XR, it can be very divisive.  They'd have to simplify/dumb down the story/maze and messaging, which they could well be doing anyway. 

They'll continue being indie as long as they can get a budget under control, dumb it down and get rid of more of the freeloader "mates" of the festival (they started making progress with that at the last few events) 

 

[Sku]

2 hours ago, JBarbour said:

Half of the tickets sold won't be right. There was a retention of half the tickets sold for this years event and it was nowhere near selling out. So it will be way less than half the "normal" capacity. Suppose it will depend on the capacity agreed with the local council and how flexible it is for next year. 

 

Sorry allow me to re clarify what I mean. Half are gone, based on the new cap. This is what they have said publicly.

I have also heard a figure for how many have rolled over from a fairly reliable source. It's a bit more than you might expect, because they did double the number of tickets in tier 1 and tier 2 for 2020, and sold both of them out quite quickly. There is a loyal following that go to the festival now regardless of lineup. It's nowhere near enough to sell it out each year, but still a sizeable number.

2 hours ago, JBarbour said:

Why reduce ticket prices if you already sold half the tickets, doing a story and line up announcement for next year will sell a hell of a lot more tickets. They are also reducing the capacity. 

Because the final tier is too expensive post-covid, and they would struggle to sell them. They have already sold tickets to the "loyalists", but now need to be priced much more competitively to sell the rest. And they can hardly reduce the final tier price without refunding the existing ticket holders.

For example, much better to sell another 10,000 tickets at £199, than only sell 1,000 at £254 in difficult economic conditions. The VAT rate being slashed from 20% to 5% pays for most of the refund amount. 

1 hour ago, JBarbour said:

They'll continue being indie as long as they can get a budget under control

That's what they have been working on during the downtime this summer from what I understand.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Sku

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, Sku said:

Sorry allow me to re clarify what I mean. Half are gone, based on the new cap. They have said that half the allocation have already gone in their newsletter/social media channels.

That sounds like a big capacity reduction, then.

[Sku]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

That sounds like a big capacity reduction, then.

Quite possibly. I'm not sure they committed to an exact number, because they want to see how sales progress. But however you cut it, the festival is going to be smaller.

[jplgc]

I find this really sad and hope this is only a temporary thing for next year with a return to the normal festival in 2022. Fingers crossed

[Sku]

5 minutes ago, jplgc said:

I find this really sad and hope this is only a temporary thing for next year with a return to the normal festival in 2022. Fingers crossed

Just got to see how it all pans out I guess. The future is looking pretty uncertain for a lot of festivals right now. I guess scaling down is what you need to do to ensure you remain a viable business. It must be impossible to predict how many tickets you can realistically sell between now and the festival, so they have to plan on the cautious side.

As long as they hold on to what makes the festival special, and throw a good event for the Boomtown faithful, hopefully they come out the other side in a pretty strong position. I'm cautiously optimistic, from what I've heard.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Sku

[JBarbour]

1 hour ago, Sku said:

Sorry allow me to re clarify what I mean. Half are gone, based on the new cap. This is what they have said publicly.

I have also heard a figure for how many have rolled over from a fairly reliable source. It's a bit more than you might expect, because they did double the number of tickets in tier 1 and tier 2 for 2020, and sold both of them out quite quickly. There is a loyal following that go to the festival now regardless of lineup. It's nowhere near enough to sell it out each year, but still a sizeable number.

I've just dug out my email and the quote "With over half of the 2020 ticket holders choosing to support Boomtown and the festival industry during these challenging times by rolling their 2020 tickets over to 2021, there is less than half the amount of tickets available for 2021." 

49 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

That sounds like a big capacity reduction, then.

So it does sound like a big reduction in the capacity. Considering they never went onto the top tier tickets

The quote from the local committee is "they're reducing the numbers quite a bit" 

1 hour ago, Sku said:

Because the final tier is too expensive post-covid, and they would struggle to sell them. They have already sold tickets to the "loyalists", but now need to be priced much more competitively to sell the rest. And they can hardly reduce the final tier price without refunding the existing ticket holders.

The tickets needed to come down in price in my opinion it got expensive for the level of acts they were booking, I know a lot goes into the production and theatre side but there is only so many stage designs and theatre you can see before you get bored year after year if the music isn't tickling you.

They must save a big chunk of money not using third party press teams and a non mainstream ticket outlet. I remember one year when they needed to shift some tickets they pushed some on Seetickets for a few months. Ticketsellers doesn't use affiliate marketing so that affects the coverage with media outlets sometimes, when publications can't get a (tiny) cut of ticket sales. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by JBarbour

[Old_Johno]

Update from Boomtown is due out today, get your last minute predictions in.

im standing by my guess of getting rid of most of the micro venues and concentrating the theatricals outside, marches through old town etc. I think it will feel more like a music festival with the theatrics stuck on the side rather than the mix they used to have. 

[jplgc]

2 minutes ago, Old_Johno said:

Update from Boomtown is due out today, get your last minute predictions in.

im standing by my guess of getting rid of most of the micro venues and concentrating the theatricals outside, marches through old town etc. I think it will feel more like a music festival with the theatrics stuck on the side rather than the mix they used to have. 

To be honest I'm really not excited at all. Im braced for a massive disappointment

[jump]

This will be interesting, I have no idea what form Boomtown will take next year.

[JBarbour]

I don't think they'll announce their plans such as dropping venues. They will build something into a theme and story announcement like its progressive. It'll probably be like the R&L announcement, no mentioned that they are likely to have less acts and stages/venues, they pushed it as progressive with two big outdoor main stages. 

[JBarbour]

Oh my. More of a reboot than I expected 

[incident]

5 minutes ago, JBarbour said:

Oh my. More of a reboot than I expected 

They've signed a sponsorship deal and the festival will now be Ronald McDonald Happytown?

[JBarbour]

Just now, incident said:

They've signed a sponsorship deal and the festival will now be Ronald McDonald Happytown?

Haha. The complete opposite I would say. Back to basics.  

[JBarbour]

Boomtown - Chapter One: The Gathering. 

No line up released prior to the festival. 

Boomtown will all now be located in what was previously known as ‘Downtown Boomtown’

Forest chillouts and woodland parties will return. 

"every inch of the ‘Downtown’ valley to build up the most detailed festival city" 

 

[Sku]

I'm so excited about the new Boomtown.

The video concept is now out:

Boomtown HQ have been kind enough to share a lot of details with me over the past week. I break down what I've learnt about the changes so far over on my blog, search for Boomtown Source if your curious.

[jplgc]

Never thought i would say this but... No. Sorry. As somebody who has been attending boomtown since the beginning, I do not want a return to 2009 thanks.

Thanks Boomtown its been fun but im out. Fuck covid (although I do think boomtown may be fibbing and this is down to financial troubles)

Edited October 1, 2020 by jplgc
Typo

[TheFullShaboo]

17 minutes ago, Sku said:

I'm so excited about the new Boomtown.

The video concept is now out:

Boomtown HQ have been kind enough to share a lot of details with me over the past week. I break down what I've learnt about the changes so far over on my blog, search for Boomtown Source if your curious.

Very informative post on the blog bud.

With the lineup not being released until such short notice, does this tend to suggest that the more commercial big names we've become used to over the last few festivals are no more? 

Pretty chuffed with the announcement overall, last few years ive started to question how i can justify spending nearly £300 on a ticket, so this reduction works well for me.