30 BILLBOARD • OCTOBER 19, 2019
MALONE:^ ADAM^DEGROSS.^ A
STROWORLD:^ ABRAHAMGONZALEZ.I
N THE SUMMER OF 2018,
Travis Scott reached out to Lil
Wayne to ask a favor. Scott was
in the process of booking the
lineup for his inaugural Astroworld
festival, and wanted to stack the
Houston event with handpicked hip-hop
acts. Lil Wayne agreed to perform, topping
the bill alongside Post Malone and Scott
himself. This September, Scott returned
the favor by headlining Lil Wayne’s Lil
WeezyAna Fest in New Orleans.
“That kind of artist-centric support is
so pivotal in growing what an artist-cu-
rated festival is about, because that Travis
Scott audience is the kind of audience
that is going to love and appreciate Lil
Wayne as well,” says Live Nation Urban
vp business development and operations
Brandon Pankey.
In an oversaturated market where there
are too many festivals booking too many
of the same headliners, it’s increasingly
common for newer ones to crash after just
a few years. In the past three years alone,
festivals like Panorama, Meadows and
Lost Lake have all halted production. But
the specificity that artist-curated lineups
offer — paired with an already built-in
fan base — is what might just keep them
afloat. “There isn’t the typical window you
normally see of building a new brand and
identity for a festival from scratch,” says
Colin Lewis, Live Nation vp touring for U.S.
concerts. “You’re starting with a strong
brand — and tons of fans.”
It’s a model that proves to be working
for most artists, specifically Scott and Post
Malone, two hip-hop heavyweights with
recent No. 1 albums and multiple hit singles
during the past year. Both are gearing up
for the second round of their respective
festivals: Scott’s Astroworld will return
to the former AstroWorld theme park at
NRG Park in Houston on Nov. 9 — just a
week after Post Malone’s second Posty
Fest takes place four hours north. This year,
Post Malone upgraded from a 20,000-ca-
pacity venue to the 100,000-capacity
AT&T Stadium in Arlington (home of the
Dallas Cowboys). “Posty Co. has worked
extremely hard to put together this festival
for Dallas,” says Post Malone. “We have so
many surprises for the fans, because y’all
know everything is bigger in Texas.”
Pankey says the most successful artist-
curated festivals are held in the artists’
hometowns — Scott is from Houston
and Post Malone was raised in the Dallas
suburbs. It’s also one of the key differ-
ences from artist-curated festivals of the
past, like Lollapalooza, which started as a
farewell tour for Perry Farrell’s Jane’s Ad-
diction before planting roots in Chicago.
“Each [new artist-curated] festival has its
own identity, because it taps into the blue-
print or the DNA of the particular city it is
in,” says Pankey. “That’s why Lil WeezyAna
Fest is nothing like Posty Fest, which is
nothing like Astroworld.”
While Scott hasn’t announced his
lineup yet, Post Malone’s includes Meek
Mill, Pharrell Williams and Jaden Smith.
Lewis says that Post Malone and his team
“handpick a lineup of artists who embody
the Posty vibe” and that “Post is very in-
volved in securing artists — he has a ton
of relationships that he calls on during the
booking phase of the festival. Some are
friends, some become friends, and all of
them are buzzy artists that his fans want
to see.” Such a strategy paid off last year,
when the inaugural Posty Fest sold out,
grossing over $1.7 million in a single day.
Of course, that payday is far from
promised. As Pankey says, typically when
artists are booked to perform at a festival
they receive a guarantee: “No matter how
successful that festival may be, an artist
is assured to receive a flat rate for their
performance.” An artist-curated festival is
much more of a financial question mark,
he says: “It’s the old adage of ‘high risk,
high reward.’ If the festival does well,
there’s an opportunity for the artist to
share in the net revenues, including ticket
sales and sponsorship.”
Both Scott and Post Malone attract
higher-profile sponsors; Astroworld has
partners in Bacardi and Smirnoff, and Posty
Fest in Bud Light. Post Malone teamed with
the company last year, collaborating on
merchandise and, more recently, custom
Bud Light cans. Anheuser-Busch InBev
regional media manager Mark Riker says
that partnerships with curated festivals are
more valuable than standard paid media
because “superfans are more likely to post
and share custom content with their friends
and followers,” creating word-of-mouth
marketing that strengthens the return on
investment for brands.
Pankey adds, “Brands are coming to
understand that Coachella will get them in
front of 100,000 people,” but an artist-
curated festival, especially one held in the
artist’s hometown, “is going to get them in
front of a very [specific] demographic that
they want to be part of.
“There is a bubble with the super-
large Coachellas and Bonnaroos and
Lollapaloozas of the world, which
creates an opportunity for artists to
be creative — and stake a claim,” says
Pankey. And despite the uncertain
future of the festival market as a whole,
he believes that “there’s a tremendous
opportunity for the artist to succeed in
the festival arena.” Why? Because, says
Pankey, “the artists will always be at the
epicenter of our industry.”
“There is a bubble with the
Coachellas, Bonnaroos and
Lollapaloozas of the world, which
creates an opportunity for artists.”
—BRANDON PANKEY, LIVE NATION URBAN
Post Malone at the
inaugural Posty
Fest in Dallas.
The entrance to
Astroworld 2018.