Avalon was always were I spent most of my festival, this year I didn't see one act there. Not that there wasn't anything good, just that there were no must sees. Anything I fancied was out trumped by something on elsewhere.
Strangely, my biggest regret was bit going to see SZA. I listened to her beforehand and thought she sounded really cool, but I didn't feel like facing a huge Pyramid Stage crowd at the time (LOL). I probably could've arrived ten minutes in and walked to the front!
It's pretty noticeable now that the core demographic of the festival right now is probably around my age (35).
Amongst that age group there is a massive appetite for the late night scene, which has grown considerably since they started going to the festival a few years back. The success of acts like Bloc Party, The Streets & London Grammar plus of course Justice and Avril demonstrates how this group was serviced by the line up.
Plus there's a whole lot of youngers who see the nighttime elements as the core draw and barely bother with the day stuff.
Nobody I know can really hack 3 nights out on the trot any more, so I think there's an element of attrition from when you compare Friday to Sunday.
So the situation seems to be a monster demand for electronic music which peaks on Friday and does nose dive by Sunday. Saturday might be the sweet spot. The Levels looked absolutely rammed all day on Friday but the rest of the weekend, not so much.
There is a fundamental problem where all the night time venues are much smaller than the big daytime stages. Even though the crowd were quite clearly split on Friday between Charli and Bicep, plus other smaller attractions, it still was a bit of a sh*t show all over the place.
I think on Saturday everything worked a lot better, Prydz was very busy but accessible - maybe because it was a later slot, that also helped?
Peggy Gou might be the set that offered a glimpse into the future, she'd have surely shut down any of the big night time stages if placed after a headliner, but did just do a DJ set on a main stage as a headliner with a large crowd. I feel like a Friday night big DJ set at the Park would probably help get over the hump of the massive demand on Friday without needing to add another huge dance venue that is then dormant during large parts of the day.