Sziget Festival 2024

[iamdebrii]

so P!nk is on tour in Europe with The Script and GAYLE till July 25th then starts her tour in North America on August 10th. She is a big enough act to be the female headliner and The Script on top of that would definitely be welcome. Plus, the headliners we're missing are for 7/8/9th of August. Thoughts?

[So Sad Simon]

13 minutes ago, iamdebrii said:

so P!nk is on tour in Europe with The Script and GAYLE till July 25th then starts her tour in North America on August 10th. She is a big enough act to be the female headliner and The Script on top of that would definitely be welcome. Plus, the headliners we're missing are for 7/8/9th of August. Thoughts?

She would certainly fit the bill as the prestige booking mentioned elsewhere. And I, personally, would welcome her appearance.

I'm not sure if she would hang around in Europe for two weeks just to play a one-off festival gig at Sziget.

I guess it also depends on how much equipment her festival show would need and whether it is all needed in St Louis two days later to set up.

Edited January 16 by So Sad Simon

[billybigballs]

18 minutes ago, iamdebrii said:

so P!nk is on tour in Europe with The Script and GAYLE till July 25th then starts her tour in North America on August 10th. She is a big enough act to be the female headliner and The Script on top of that would definitely be welcome. Plus, the headliners we're missing are for 7/8/9th of August. Thoughts?

Would be a good booking in my eyes but there was a lot of negativity on here about her last appearance. Dont know why that was. Not sure I support booking The Script though!!

Edited January 16 by billybigballs

[thetime]

46 minutes ago, iamdebrii said:

so P!nk is on tour in Europe with The Script and GAYLE till July 25th then starts her tour in North America on August 10th. She is a big enough act to be the female headliner and The Script on top of that would definitely be welcome. Plus, the headliners we're missing are for 7/8/9th of August. Thoughts?

She's using that 2 weeks to recharge, 0% chance. 

 

[Matt86]

8 hours ago, Dukkai said:

to simply put, bands that would make a decisive factor and when people see the announcement they would actually consider buying a ticket for at least a day pass for the festival.

Good example of that was Imagine Dragons and Billie Eilish last year. Whatever you may think about their music, they are huge names and people would go to the festival just to see their act.

Another good indicator would be if you had those names on a poster and showed it to random people on the street whether they would recognize the names there or not. Acts listed by rowexx - Lana, Jorja, James Blake, Jungle, RAYE, Sevdaliza, Kali Uchis, Bicep, Charli XCX, 21 Savage,  Omar Apollo, Maneskin, Troye Sivan, FKA Twigs, Arca, Kim Petras, I can guarantee you that out of 100 people, you would find max 10 that would recognize more than 3 acts there, with 2 being Lana and Maneskin.

As for other festivals headliners..

Take for example Mad Cool: Dua Lipa, Smashing Pumpkins, Nothing but Thieves, Garbage, Pearl Jam, Avril Lavigne, SUM 41, Jessie Ware, Bring me the horizon. Musical taste aside, the hypothetical 100 people from the example above, at least 50% of those would recognize at least 3-4 acts from there (unless you pick 100 people that only listen to domestic music or sth like that)

Rock Werchter has, in addition to some of the above acts Foo Fighters, Snow Patrol and Lenny Kravitz who are all 3 bigger individually than all of the current Sziget acts all pilled together (if you leave out Fred again and Sam Smith).

"Outdated" or not (however silly that idea sounds in the first place) some of those bands (like Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage or The Offspring) would sell more festival and daily passes then, for example, Stormzy or Louis Tomlinson.

 

@Newjem, I think this is a good resume ^^

I 90% of the time agree with you man, but there is a WORLD between Sziget's line up and RW - Mad Cools' ones lol..

Being aware of some "bands cost" (sorry I don't know the english word or expression) in some French festivals, I can swear to you that Mad cool and Rock Werchter did spent way more money on their line up than Sziget so far.

[billybigballs]

12 hours ago, billybigballs said:

It's an interesting question. I'm not sure what Leaks' connection to the festival is, but he appears to be very close to it and even he thought it was a 'meh' announcement in December, but a couple of months earlier he stated it was shaping up to be a good one (or words to that effect).

They obviously felt they needed to announce ahead of Christmas, but the line-up is clearly under-developed and the social media reaction to it has been pretty brutal. And continues to be, with every further post.

However, I suspect they are far more interested in ticket sales (for ticket income but also to attract traders etc - the more tickets sold, the more they can charge for pitches). If sales fell off a cliff once the announcement was made, they'll know they need to step things up for the next one.

 

 

 

Just realised I missed off a very important component that will play their part in (hopefully) ensuring the next announcement is a much better one. 

Sponsors. Revolut, Coca-Cola, Red Bull. All three of these are very successful global brands and will not be happy being associated with the mass criticism the first announcement has attracted.

I suspect that whoever is responsible for building these deals will be having a quiet word in the ear of their Sziget contact to ensure they pull it out of the bag with announcement number 2.

[dude111]

i see some great names in the american line ups.

id love to get labrinth, no doubt justice & j balvin from coachella

[billybigballs]

1 hour ago, dude111 said:

i see some great names in the american line ups.

id love to get labrinth, no doubt justice & j balvin from coachella

If you look very closely, there are actually some pretty decent names playing. And a lot I've never heard of!

Would happily take No Doubt, Brittany Howard, Last Dinner Party, Young Fathers, Kenya Grace, Jungle, Khruangbin and a few more.

Also interesting to see that Blur are around this year too....

Edited January 17 by billybigballs

[#1SzigetFan]

No Doubt would be a really cool booking but it looks like they're reuniting exclusively for Coachella

[billybigballs]

3 minutes ago, #1SzigetFan said:

No Doubt would be a really cool booking but it looks like they're reuniting exclusively for Coachella

It wouldn't surprise me if they extended it. Quite a few headliner gaps in European festivals at the moment. 

Gwen played a few solo gigs in the UK last year and there were lots of 2 for 1 deals to be had on her tickets. An extended reuniting of No Doubt might give her career a bit of a kick-start. 

[iamdebrii]

some new names for Dour (Belgium) in addition to what was announced previously. 

[billybigballs]

Missed that Grimes and Bicep are on the Coachella line-up too. Would love both (although when I saw Grimes at a festival in 2016, I could have sworn she was miming throughout).

 

Edited January 17 by billybigballs

[iamdebrii]

Parkway Drive, Gaslight Anthem, Stone, Mike Skinner (The Streets), Meute, Slowdive, James Arthur, Tom Morello, Archive, Sleaford Mods, The Blaze, Janelle Monae, Benjamin Clementine, Marc Rebillet, Sampha, Parcels, Zara Larsson, Loyle Carner, Froukje and High Vis added to Werchter line-up... not bad at all.

p.s. it seems like people on most forums are unimpressed with European festival line-ups this year from what i can tell, hm.

Edited January 17 by iamdebrii

[billybigballs]

Blur's email to their mailing list states that Coachella is their only U.S gig this year. Which implies they will be playing gigs elsewhere...

[lukatej]

Rudimental Live announced for festival in Czech Republic in beginning of August.

Could possibly be one of new added. Where would you place them?

[billybigballs]

58 minutes ago, lukatej said:

Rudimental Live announced for festival in Czech Republic in beginning of August.

Could possibly be one of new added. Where would you place them?

I've seen them a couple of times and they have been thoroughly entertaining on both occasions.

I'd say they'd make a great A38 headliner or a pre-sub position on main stage on the Stormzy day, with a strong sub playing between them both.

[iamdebrii]

51 minutes ago, billybigballs said:

I'd say they'd make a great A38 headliner or a pre-sub position on main stage on the Stormzy day, with a strong sub playing between them both.

Sziget had Clean Bandit at 4PM right before Stormzy back in 2017 so pre-sub kinda makes sense to me. Still nowhere near the sub-sizes of previous years though.

[iamdebrii]

21 in Portugal in July then in R+L in August... maybe?

[billybigballs]

57 minutes ago, iamdebrii said:

21 in Portugal in July then in R+L in August... maybe?

As a sub I assume? 

[Newjem]

1 hour ago, iamdebrii said:

21 in Portugal in July then in R+L in August... maybe?

Nah, he’ll defo fly back to US to play Lolla or something. Can’t see him staying in Europe for two months.

[iamdebrii]

15 minutes ago, Newjem said:

Nah, he’ll defo fly back to US to play Lolla or something. Can’t see him staying in Europe for two months.

3 week period from Super Bock till Start of Sziget and another 3 weeks till R+L so he could fit in. He's not really a Sziget-typical fit but the timing is convenient, especially considering that the approach to bookings this year is unlike anything we've ever seen

[Newjem]

50 minutes ago, iamdebrii said:

3 week period from Super Bock till Start of Sziget and another 3 weeks till R+L so he could fit in. He's not really a Sziget-typical fit but the timing is convenient, especially considering that the approach to bookings this year is unlike anything we've ever seen

And what’s he gonna do in those 6 weeks? Sightseeing?

[billybigballs]

1 hour ago, Newjem said:

And what’s he gonna do in those 6 weeks? Sightseeing?

Europe's got some prerty nice sights tbf.

[billybigballs]

1 hour ago, billybigballs said:

Europe's got some prerty nice sights tbf.

Can't even spell pretty in my mother tongue. How embarrassing 😳 

[gunghoglen]

The Coachella lineup just confirms my belief that 2024 will just be a down year for festivals across the board. Lana, Tyler and Doja are weak headliners IMHO. If this is what we can expect from the hippest, most important US festival, then it explains what we have seen so far here for Europe. Maybe Glastonbury pulls something together that is unique, but I no longer expect big headliners to spill over to the festival scene this year.

Coachella should have headliners as big as Bruno Mars, Beyonce, Coldplay and the like. Frankly, I'd take the Sziget headliners from 2022 and 2023 and that would be a way better show than the 2024 Coachella Festival. Dua Lipa, Arcitc Monkeys, Imagine Dragons, Billie Eilish, all better than anything going on in Indio, CA.

Sziget does owe us some bigger names and better bands, but on the whole we should probably temper our expectations and just realize that maybe the bigger names return in 2025.....