Why do most fans Not stick around for other bands in a Metal Fest?

[Datis]

This question has been bugging the hell out of me for a long time. So I want everybody else's take on it.

It is a sad truth what Mark Gromen told me after our Warriors Of Metal Fest II this past June that the American audience seems to come out to support the one band that they come to see and then they leave.

Why is that? I don't get it. Especially in a Fest setting.

I can understand that for any old gig where you go to see your target band and may "accidentally" see some other ones as well! But you know what? Some of those accidental discoveries can be quite good.

For example, when my wife Lea and I went to see Kamelot & Epica in Cleveland in 2006, I discovered Auburn Records' ETERNAL LEGACY. These guys sounded quite awesome and only later did I realize that they had won the citywide battle of the bands called Battle For Kamelot to have earned the right to be the direct local support for Kamelot for that night. They had done the same previously to open for DragonForce. I contacted them, became friends with their guitarist, Shaun Vanek and have been friends and big fan of Eternal Legacy ever since. I was invited to their CD release party in 2007, got some 30 CDs from them to send to friends in some 20 different countries sround the world, had Eternal Legacy play at our All Hallows Eve Metal Fest II and Warriors Of Metal Fest II in Chillicothe, OH, and am going to the CD release party of their 2nd CD in Cleveland on Nov. 27th. I highly recommend everybody to check out their 1st Epic Metal album "Coming Of The Tempest" and their soon to be released "Lifeless Alive". Here's their myspace link:

www.myspace.com/officialeternallegacy

This is just ONE accidental discovery and there have been many more since then. Don't Metal fans really want to discover any other bands than that one they came to see?

My uncle and legal guardian while I was attending high school in Greece (where I became a Metalhead in 1984) always said: Enjoyment of Life = The things that you love in Life X The number of those things in your life.

I Love Metal. So it makes sense to try to discover as many Metal bands that I may like to increase my enjoyment in life. Do other people Not think like that?

What do the rest of you think about this and how can we affect a change in people's attitude towards a broader support of the Metal scene?

Hoyt, Joe Bustamante (Kansas City Power Fest), Camden (Florida Power Fest) and the rest of us (Ryan Carroll of 494 Productions, Lea and I) cannot do this all by ourselves. We need your help.

Thanks a lot and Keep It Metal \m/

Datis Alaee
DJ Metal Daddy
Farvahar Records
Official Sponsor of Warriors Of Metal Fest III (headlined by OMEN & ASKA...so far ! )

 

[ALowerDeep]

Damn good question and one that is difficult to answer. I have spoken with tons of people that have said something like "I'm glad I stayed for you guys, I wasn't familar with A Lower Deep before this show and almost left because I didn't know the band". So I think that is alot of it. People stay with what they know. Either band members they know and want to support or songs that they know. It's why cover bands do better than original bands that aren't household names yet. People want to hear stuff they are familar with. If you watch and original band like those that play WOM, Pathfinder, Kansas, and they play a cover song, I guarantee the cover gets tons more reaction than the original material. Even though all these bands have great original material people just don't know it. You can look are all of our many reviews and almost always we get very high marks, but in those case the reviewer has listened enough to gain a familarity with our material. People who come to a fest like this and hear bands play songs that aren't just 4/4 time, two part songs, seem to not want to pay attention. They want easy accessibilty. I would guess that if you took 100 people and they actually listened to the bands songs for more than a couple of times before hearing them live the reaction would be much better. But most people will stick with what they know, and not bother with checking out bands and becoming familar with them first. Some people listen to 30 second of one song and decide they don't like something. I think it is a symptom of the US society. There is so much out there and so little time most folks would rather stuff came to them than have to spend the effort with some new and complex.

 

[Datis]

I agree. And even Aska played a Metallica cover during their set, and quite unnecessarily too, as many have pointed out but I guess they themselves wanted to pay tribute and I'm sure it takes them back to earlier days so it is kind of a walk on Nostolgia road for them, AND it gets the crowd more involved although whoever was there at that late hour wasn't necessarily "discovering" aska for the first time any more.

When in San Antonio for the Nightmare MetalFest II, Lance King's own band (Krucible) playing direct support to Seven Witches, covered Dream Theatre's "Pull Me Under" which got the crowd involved BIG TIME since Krucible still didn't have a debut album out after a year or so of its formation, so I can see the reasoning there to get the crowd involved.

But the fans of one band not sticking around to listen to anybody else is EVERYWHERE, Unless you have a captive audience! During our Warriors Of Metal Fest II, everybody retreated to their tents to hang out with their friends on the perifery of the camp site or even in the parking lot, way away from the stage! For all intents and purposes, they may not have even been there.

For our All Hallows Eve Metal Fests II & III people either hang out just outside the venue smoking or just plain leave since the venue (The Historic Majestic Theatre) is in the heart of the downtown Chillicothe.

For our Halloween Metal Fest (All Hallows Eve Fest III) I counted something like 50 people scattered in small groups all over the 800 seat theatre during the set of one of the local bands that we put on the line-up to bring the people in.....and they promptly left after their set was done, leaving our Metal brothers from Seventh Calling who had hauled ass from Las Vegas to play to, well, let's just say not as many people! Probably 30 or so, which in retrospect was probably not that many less than the Kansas City Power Fest back in mid-August. But Damn it, I had higher expectations, you know?

And what really sucks in that SEVENTH CALLING (www.myspace.com/seventhcalling), by pretty much any measure of comparrison was several orders of magnitude better than any other band that came before it, hence the later billing! The only band that came close was WRECKED (www.myspace.com/wreckers) from New Point, Indiana who put on an excellent show of original matterials (they are NOT coveing anybody else any more if they can help it). These guys kick ass every time I see them and they pack the house in Cincinnati 99% of the time so I was adamant in injecting them into the cadre of bands we usually work with in Southeastern and Central Ohio.

Now if only we could lock the doors and prevent the people from leaving..... Sadly that may be the only way you may be able to get the folks to listen to anything different, let alone have them appreciate something different!

So where do we find people like ourselves who'd travel 8 or more hours by car or would fly in to Metal Fests? Any ideas?

Datis

 

[halcyonwayband@aol.com]

You know, I had a thought on this. Billy is pretty much correct, I mean people have short attention spans and have to want to see metal to stay the whole night. Don't know if this would help.....but you have been doing those sampler CDs of the fests, which is a fantastic idea. What about sending them to the people that buy the tickets ahead of time? Maybe that would help get them familiar? In other words, when the tix get mailed, so does a CD. Just a thought.

I do think that what makes it so hard is that for a smaller fest, it's hard to get a "real" headliner. I think ASKA for example are a great band, but they're not a household name even among metalheads. In spite of how long they've been out, and in spite of the fact that I know metal news pretty well, I had never even heard of them before we played with them at NMF II in San Antonio this year.

So we somehow have to have a real anchor band that will draw by themselves, and then put others in front of it. Problem is, that costs a bunch of money, and the guarantees cause more risk for the promoter. So it seems to me that maybe what has to happen to make these regional fests a little more successful is to take a page from PPs book - book a bigger headliner, say a Symphony X or a Nightwish or someone like that. Not sure what these guys cost but say it's $3000-4000. I think that's reasonably close. The promoters need to put the word out to some well-heeled fans that they need a couple of sponsors for the show, say $500-1000 each. Give them VIP passes, dinner with the bands, something like that to make it worthwhile for the person. Sell the tix for more as a result. Advertise the hell out of it.

For example.....Hoyt tried to get something going with Stuck Mojo here in Atlanta a couple of years ago, this was sort of at my request because Rich is a fan of ours and has always been very cool to us, and I'm a fan of SM as well. This is their hometown and they draw a very large crowd here. The numbers worked even with the guarantee they commanded, because the crowd they would pull would make it work. It didn't work out due to scheduling issues. But the numbers were fairly sound.

That's where I think we need to head with these fests. I think Cage is a good start, no idea what their draw or numbers are like, but this will be a good test. Can we use the mid-tier bands like that to have a successful fest, or do we need to shoot higher? Don't know.

But obviously you put the lesser-known bands like an Aska, or an HW, or whoever below them as support. Your headliner should be the anchor of the show, even if your lesser known bands have draws on their own. That way, if people come & go throughout the night because of the issue in this thread, it balances.

Other thing I would say.....don't have the headliner go on at 1am. Schedule it so it's 11pm or something so you don't lose people because they're tired.
I would also suggest you put it together more as a local or regional show; focus your advertising efforts and dollars on the immediate area. For example, BW/BK can do banner ads that are regionally targeted. Until we get on the level of a PPUSA or something like that, the majority of our draw will be local or regional. Speaking for myself as a fan....I've never traveled further than Virginia from Atlanta for a show as a fan, and that was Ozzfest with Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, and a ton of other bands like that. Well, one other exception, did a road trip to TX for the Galactic Cowboys reunion shows, but that was a once in a lifetime thing, to see one of my favorite bands ever do something special. For a lot of people, you probably have to have a show like that to get them to spend the dough on the travel, hotel, food, etc of a show out of town. I would think that it's got to be special for most folks to get out like that.

The more underground bands just aren't going to have that kind of devotion from the fans.....it's the law of large numbers. If you sell a lot of CDs and have a lot of fans, say 100,000, and your music hits 1/10 of them in a real meaningful & personal way, that's 10,000 people. Then you may have 1/10 that are big enough fans to where their fandom is a big enough deal for them to save up, take off from work and family, and to travel a long distance to see them. That's 1000. Then you have all the other variables like timing, can they get off work, can they afford it, etc. So even for a big selling artist, what percentage of their fanbase can be convinced to travel a really long way.

So I think that for it to work really well, it needs to be regionally focused with a great headliner, and a strong supporting cast on the bill. Maybe someone can take the plunge and do something along the lines of a smaller Ozzfest? Have the headliner do a relatively small amount of regional shows, not too close to each other, have 1-2 other bands on the tour package, but have a bunch of regionals on it in each area, but market it as a festival thing. Have vendors follow it. Kind of a lower budget Music As A Weapon/Gigantour thing. You could have the headliner with their guarantee, the other bands on the package with a buy-in and a per-diem for expenses, then the regionals have a buy-in that is reasonable, and the vendors buy-in, and if it's marketed right you could have a bit of a profit going on if the headliner draws. But differentiate it from a big "tour package" by calling it a traveling festival with vendors/tattoo artists/etc.

Just an idea. Maybe it's been done before and didn't work. Don't know.

 

[Reverend Su]

i can't speak for others, but the way The Su enjoys a fest is this: i give the bands that i don't know at least 3 songs. if i don't like them by the third song, i step out. but i *will* give them the three song buffer. as you mention, Datis, you never know what gem you might find just by sticking around to listen.

yes, i came to PFM for Steve's debut performance with HW...but i found myself liking quite a few of the bands that played...(now, when i get a job, i can buy their discs ) and i am glad that i stuck it out to listen to them

but, as has been noted before - The Su is not the general audience member...she rolls in her own way so my way of rocking out at a festival is not necessarily the way the average person will rock out

 

[James]

Most of what Jon has said is along the same lines as what I've been thinking.

Regarding getting people to the shows in the first place, and using Pathfinder Metalfest as an example, I also had never heard of ASKA prior to this year's Nightmare Metalfest. I’m not exactly an encyclopedia o’ metal, but I like to think that I do a reasonably good job of keeping up with bands in the traditional metal realm…if I wasn’t aware of them, then I can only surmise that casual fans had no clue. If people see a press release or a flyer for a festival, and they see names they don’t recognize, then they probably assume it’s ‘just another local show’, and they ignore it…they’re not even going to take the time to investigate if the bands are any good. People spend so much time online these days, yet no one seems to have the time or the inclination to go to Google, type “ASKA MySpace”, or “Zephaniah MySpace” and hit the ‘Enter’ key. Hell, there were probably traditional metal fans here in Atlanta that spent Pathfinder Metalfest weekend on message boards bitching about how there’s nothing to do and no good bands ever come here to play, blah, blah, blah…meanwhile, WE were all hanging out at Sidelines watching Zephaniah, ASKA, Halcyon Way, and everyone else blow the roof off that club.

It’s not entirely the fault of casual fans: promoters have been abusing the word “festival” to try and sell their evening of local garage bands for as long as I can remember; that’s why it’s important for the promoters themselves to build their own brand. When I see that a show is a Pathfinder Promotions event, I know damn well the bands are going to be top-notch; going forward, when I see an announcement for Warriors of Metal Fest, I will likewise understand that a quality lineup has been booked, even if I’m not familiar with the names. I haven’t even been to one of your shows, Datis, yet I already know what to expect, because of meeting you, seeing your posts online, listening to your sampler CDs, etc. You’ve already established YOUR brand with me, and the bands (and your shows) will benefit because of it.

Regarding the retention of the crowd that does show up for a gig: as we’ve previously established, even if they’re already in the venue, they’re not necessarily going to stick around for the bands they are unfamiliar with to give them a chance. For this reason, I like Jon’s idea of getting the music in to everyone’s hands ahead of time; however, to save costs, I would suggest having the disc in a downloadable format, hosted on a site such as RAPIDSHARE or MEGAUPLOAD. If you have the festival sampler in a downloadable format, you can get the music in to everyone’s hands, whether they’ve bought a ticket or not. While we’ve established that people are generally too disinterested to Google a band name (let alone five or ten), and while we’ve established that people are generally too disinterested to stick around and watch bands they know nothing about, we do know for a fact that people will invest the time and effort to download music…I guess there’s nothing more motivational than giving someone the feeling they’re getting something for nothing.

Furthermore, that single upload gives you the potential to reach a far greater number of potential fans. Plus, you will at least be able to see the statistics and know how many people downloaded the file. If you send someone a disc with a ticket purchase, you’ll never really know if they took the time to listen to it; if someone goes through the trouble of downloading a file, they’re probably more likely to go through the trouble of listening to the music.

Also, since the download will be compressed in to some type of zipped file (preferably .RAR ), you can include other files, such as cover artwork (if the downloader is an old-school dude like me and wants to burn the MP3s to disc), or a .PDF version of the festival flyer, etc. Hell, you could even throw your own advertisement in there to tell everyone “send me an e-mail, and be entered in to a drawing to win a free Zephaniah CD”, or something along those lines. Think about the fish bowls you see in restaurants: “Drop your business card in here for a chance to win a free lunch ($7.99 value)”…and the bowls are always full. It’s amazing how many names they are able to add to their marketing list for an eight dollar meal that didn’t even cost them four bucks to make.

While I realize you will have a ton of people download the file that would have no prospect of attending your fest if they wanted to (being that it’s a world wide web, and all ), you would still be accomplishing two tasks: getting the music in to the hands of both definite and potential festival attendees, and you would be achieving your goal of giving these bands as much exposure as possible.

Perhaps our resident CAGE contact could find out from their management what kind of numbers they’ve seen with the free download they’ve had going around since before ProgPower…paging Hoyt!

Some more notes about crowd retention at the shows: between bands try and figure out ways to entertain people while the stage is being changed over. Two words: midget wrestling! In all seriousness, this is an area that needs to be evaluated more thoroughly. People are still going to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, go for a smoke; however, give them a reason to make sure they’re back in the venue in time for the next band, if the band itself doesn’t seem to be reason enough. Maybe raffle off whatever promotional items or swag you have right before every band kicks off their set…better yet, ask some “Stump the Trunk”-style trivia questions to let them try and win the merchandise, thereby making the process even more interactive. Also during the intermissions, play tunes by the next band getting ready to hit the stage, instead of some tired AC/DC song I never wanted to hear again anyway (and keep the volume low enough so I can socialize with friends between bands without feeling the need to step outside so we can hear each other talk). Not everyone watches the game on Super Bowl Sunday, but everyone watches the freakin’ commercials, so there is some potential here. Additionally, the bands themselves need to make sure they have gone over every detail of their set, particularly the running order of the songs. Don’t save your best material for the grand finale, because, by that time, everyone has left the building, and they’re not coming back. It’s just like when you send a demo to a record label…you have ten seconds to impress them, then the disc goes in the trash; I don’t think it’s any different when you’re playing live in front of people that don’t know who you are. The gig is always a sales pitch; however, in a festival setting, you’re not just selling the crowd on the merits of your own band…you’re also selling them on the idea that sticking around to see the other bands will be FUCKING AMAZING. Also, if you’ve been offered a 45-minute set and you only have 38 minutes of material you feel strongly about, don’t be shy…tell the promoter. Don’t waste everyone’s time by trying to “fill” the extra 7 minutes…this will clear a room quicker than a bomb threat, and it just ends up being a disservice to the bands that follow.

ALWAYS leave them wanting more…don’t leave them saying “I was done with this band 10 minutes ago”.

I think Hoyt had the perfect balance the last time Theocracy played The Local; after EVERY band played that night, I found myself saying “wow, I really would’ve liked to hear ONE more tune”. I left the show that night thinking how much I’m looking forward to seeing those bands again; interestingly enough, the crowd retention seemed to be better that night than any other show in recent memory.

I apologize for the long-winded post…believe me, I do recognize the irony of my 1500- word dissertation concluding with the suggestion that bands need to be more brief and on point when they’re playing a festival . I also want to make it clear that I’m not knocking any band or festival specifically; what I’m presenting is a cumulative account of what I’ve experienced in my 27 years of attending concerts. I thoroughly enjoy the bands that you and Hoyt promote, and I greatly appreciate all the effort each of you put in to your support of traditional metal. This post is really just a stream of consciousness to throw some ideas out there for debate that I think would help the casual fan enjoy these shows as much as I do.

 

[Mr. Zane of HW]

I agree with you James! I also believe that shorter set times are a good thing. It's always best to leave the crowd wanting a little more. Hell, even Iron Maiden starts to drone after the 60 min. mark live. There are only a few bands in history that can get away with a set in excess of an hour, most of us feel very accomplished after 45 min. If we leave the stage and they're chanting for more, then that's the BEST.

 

[Datis]

I remember Lance had 50 minute sets during Nightmare MetalFest II which if you liked the music was pretty good and if you weren't diggin' it, it seemed to go on forever. I agree that 45 minutes is adequate, but I can also see that if you do have a good amount of materials and you wanna throw in a cover or two to get the audience's blood pumping with something familiar, as Billy pointed out, then you have the time to do it. Now if you have a bunch of long songs like Zephaniah, then you can only play so many anyway in which case some extra time (over 45 minutes) becomes pretty handy.

 

[Heavenly Call]

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said here. Very insightful, well thought out comments.

From another perspective, part of the issue is the "type" of person who is coming to the show. I will point fingers here...at US. Our fans (Brazen Angel) are some of the worst in terms of showing interest in the overall scene. It's not due to lack of trying on our part, it's just that most people who come to our shows are friends of ours or friends of friends and MOST of them aren't even really into metal in the first place. This sucks for the other bands and I genuinely feel bad for them, but it's nothing we can really prevent. It's not that we draw HUGE numbers, but every band likes to have the opportunity to make those one or two new fans and when people are leaving, it's quite tough! This was very true at our last gig in Newnan back in November. We pulled in about 65 total (not huge, but it was a good night for us) while the other 4 bands drew 118 combined. So, for our set the place (capacity of 300?) looked pretty nicely filled out, but once we were done many of our guys flew the coop to do other things, even though we tried to get them to stay and hang out with us. The rest of the night there were between 20-40 inside at any given time, yet 183 came through the door at some point.

One thing above I REALLY REALLY REALLY agree with is to try not to have the headliner go on so late. This may come off as whiny or not "metal" but the human body can only take so much. I even have this issue at ProgPower even when the band I've waited all weekend to see is on Saturday night. I think a 4 band night is perfect. It's not too much to take in and everyone can have decent set times. Unfortunately, this is not always economically feasible.

I also like the idea of some kind of between set entertainment or something different. I am going to think about this further...hmmm....