Let's take a peek behind the scenes into why music festivals cost consumers so much money.

I've been marinating on a piece about music festivals—primarily Lollapalooza—and wondering where most of them go from here. I've been thinking about artistic choices made by festival booking agents, but I admit I hadn't really thought about ticket pricing since that doesn't seem to act as much of a deterrent to attendees.*

Luckily for me The Economist comes to the rescue, opening my horizons on the subject with the video above. I would've gotten around to this angle eventually, but they did some of the initial legwork for me. Hee. Check it out as I continue to work on my longer piece about mega-fests in general.


*My primary hypothesis is that line-ups are so similar amongst big fests it's growing obvious music is the secondary draw when it comes to getting people inside the gates, so ticket pricing hadn't really initially registered with me. The interviews with attendees in the video supports that notion, and kinda breaks my heart a little. And makes me thankful there are still a handful, albeit shrinking, number of festivals like Riot Fest that focus on the music as the draw, then provide an experience on the grounds to support fans having a good time. But the main focus at a festival like that is the music, not the party.