Riot Fest 2018 - September 14-16 - Douglas Park, Chicago Tour • Page 110

You are correct. Riot Fest announced the daily lineups on June 22nd last year.

 

My guess is daily lineups and schedule go out same time this year, but who really knows

 

It’s just odd that Fest is a full 6 weeks after Riot Fest and announced its first wave 6 weeks before Riot did. Announced its second wave over a month ago and is announcing its schedule on Monday lol

 

Honestly at this point I’m most likely selling my Riot tickets and going to Fest, and hitting Halloween Horror Nights at Universal the few days after

 

Fest is a much better experience honestly. I love Riot Fest but Fest is something else

 

I had the time of my life at Riot Fest this year, but at this point it does not seem worth the money since I would be flying from NY, and still need to find a hotel.

 

If you've never been to Fest, I'd suggest going at least once (and certainly over this year's Riot Fest). It's a completely different vibe/experience.

 

I really would love to go to Fest one year but Riot is much closer and easier for me. Maybe now that I have a better paying job with vacation time I’ll try it next year.

 

Here’s my theory/hot take/pipe dream.

The last headliner for Riot Fest will be Green Day playing Dookie. The reason it’s taking so long to announce it is that they want Riot Fest to be the kick off for their 25year anniversary for Dookie next year. So the later the announcement the better they can sell tickets for next year. If you look at the lineup there are tons of west coast punk bands, his sons band is playing and this would sync up perfectly with the release of that easy bay punk doc. Also! Still no The Longshot tour date for Chicago. I’m probably reading too much into my theory but it makes sense.

 

I don't know that Riot Fest is a platform that Green Day really needs to promote a 25th anniversary tour for Dookie. If that tour is happening? It's going to sell it fast. If Green Day were to do that at Riot Fest? It's strictly for fun.

I'd say it definitely bodes well for the Longshot being that that SWMRS are on the bill... But that's now feeling "eh" to me, at this point, as far as a possibility goes. I was expecting the Longshot to announce a fall tour with a few bigger cities (they skipped Boston on that last tour too), but that hasn't come yet.

Too, there's a few "west coast punk bands" on the bill, but it's not like it's loaded with bands that used to play Gilman back in the day. I'd be a bit more swayed if you had like Rancid, the Mr. T Experience, Samiam, or whoever on the bill.

 

If it's not today then I don't imagine it's coming this week

I really hope we get aftershows next week though

 

As someone stated on reddit - there seems to be this greater than 0% chance of the festival not happening this year and that’s concerning.

 

Green Day doesn't need Riot Fest but I would argue that Riot Fest desperately needs Green Day.

 

I don't think they would continuously post every single day, a few times a day if there was a chance of cancellation

 

Unfortunately, I'm starting to consider selling my tickets and avoid the high cost of airfare and hotel as well. Last year was my first year attending, mainly due to Jawbreaker, and I had an amazing time. Was excited about going again and decided to buy pre-sale tix to save money. There's nothing wrong with the lineup, but there's just not enough bands that I'm really excited to see to justify the expense of airfare and hotel room. I'll wait for the 2nd wave announcement to decide, but with the constant delays my enthusiasm has faded and I'm not hopeful that there will be much to get excited about in the 2nd wave.

 

Exactly. They are still posting about the 2018 full album performances this morning.

 

They’ve been saying that the $99 tickets are “almost gone” since July 25th...

 

Even they put a tweet saying the 31 was the last day to buy them at $99 and that the price will go up after that

 

I’ve been calling that dumb hotline everyday and it hasn’t changed at all. Not even the song of the day. Not sure why they keep pushing it on us.

 

Arguably, there's never a 0% chance that any festival doesn't get canceled. Maybe I'm too optimistic, and maybe some of the people talking about how the festival might get canceled actually have experience in the booking/promotions/festival industry (I don't)... But at this moment, I don't see any supportive evidence that points to the festival potentially being canceled.

The delayed second wave line-up announcement is frustrating, but nobody really knows why it's happening. It's just a lot of guessing. The ticket sale bit is a clear indicator that sales are down for this year... But just because they're down doesn't mean it's bad enough that it's going to get canceled.

It just feels like they're trying to match attendance for previous years with a line-up that lacks the "big get" they've had the last few years... Which is a mistake, especially since they aren't addressing any of the delays or why the ticket sale's been extended.

I don't know. All of this just points to "it's an off year" for me. Not that the sky is falling. But... Maybe I'm too optimistic. Shrug.

Obviously. Haha.

 

this is definitely the only part of it that gets me. Some real talk from them would be nice every once in awhile. Bt at the same time, 1)they dont necesarily owe us that and 2) if they were to address that something not great is going on behind the scenes (money, ticket sales, potential health related cancellation, getting 2nd wave bands to sign on the dotted line, whatever..) then people will run with it on social media as doom and gloom. right now its all specualtion but if they confirm it then it may cause people on social media to freak out even more.. i get its a tough line to walk as a business.

Happened with Loufest this year, they were late on their line up too and when people kept spamming all their social media posts with "ughhh wheres the lineup??" they finally put out a "we hear you and understand your frustration, and we promise we are working on it" type statement and people actually did react well and calmed down for the most part.

 

I think that's what Riot needs to do, not posting about a hot line or a mail saying to pay attention next week. People are rally anxious and a simple message like that will calm everybody

 

Yeah, they need to be reading the room a little bit. I'm firmly in the "they don't owe us shit, they're a business" camp, but that's where it gets wonky.

They don't owe us anything, but if they were paying closer attention? They'd notice that people are losing interest, freaking out, etc.

A quick post saying that "it's coming--don't worry" or whatever would assuage a lot of people.

But the way I look at it? If the line-up was exactly as it is, sans question mark, and they didn't say there would be a second wave announcement... And the top three billed were Blink-182, Beck, and Elvis Costello... People would just assume they downsized a bit this year, and the word "cancellation" wouldn't be on anybody's lips.

 

I think you're right. I want Riot Fest to succeed since lots of people put a lot of effort into organizing the event, but all the delays and the slashed ticket prices really seem to indicate that difficulties are going on behind the scenes. I suspect that difficulty is mostly related to lagging ticket sales. Low ticket sales would hinder the ability to add bands in the 2nd wave as well as causing issues with vendors. The vendors paying $5k to $10k for a booth have an expectation that a certain number of ticket holders will show up each day. If those promised target numbers for ticket sales aren't met, vendors aren't going to want to pay high fees for booth rentals. Yes, Ticketfly getting hacked caused problems for Riot Fest's initial lineup ticket sale and Riot Fest was entitled to a settlement, but that likely wasn't the reason for slashing ticket prices. That just seems like positive spin to avoid the "doom and gloom" publicity that would normally be associated with reducing ticket prices to a festival. The reduced ticket prices and the free single day passes given to previous ticket buyers were likely intended to try to raise the number of attendees to the festival, though raising less revenue due to the reduced prices and free single day passes.

 

I really wish they'd quit fartin' around and give us that Limp announcement already. I haven't been pounding hotdog flavored water in anticipation for the last 3 weeks for nothin'!