Boxoffice Insider: Music Festivals; Big Draws, Big Crowds, Big Bucks

Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic / Life Is Beautiful – Florence + The Machine
Florence + The Machine, seen here playing Life Is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas Sept. 22, was a festival staple this year.

For countless music fans the biggest bang for the buck is the music festival with multiple days and stages and a trove of bands to see. In 2018 festival attendees experienced some of the music industry’s biggest draws on main stages throughout North America and around the globe.

Although not every festival in the world shares news of its box office success, Pollstar still provides a glimpse of some of the biggest festival events out there and the impact they have on the live music scene. In 2018 few events equal the live imprint made by the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco. The three-day event heads up the list of major festivals that have reported box office results in 2018.

The Bay Area music event kicked off its second decade at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on Aug. 10-12, logging an overall gross of $27.7 million during its run. Total attendance reached 201,477 over the three-day span with tickets priced from a low of $149.50 to $795. Outside Lands is produced by San Francisco Bay Area-based Another Planet Entertainment along with Superfly Presents.

Gregg Perloff, Another Planet’s CEO shared his thoughts with Pollstar about the successful 2018 event stating, “Eleven years in, Outside Lands continues to grow and evolve with this year’s Saturday show being the single biggest sales day in the history of the festival.”

Among the highlights of this summer’s event was the introduction of Grass Lands – an area of the park where attendees age 21 and over could find information on cannabis products and its many uses in one’s daily life – all coming on the heels of California’s legalization of recreational cannabis at the beginning of this year.

FilmMagic – Jamie XX
Jamie XX performs on the Sutro Stage during the 2018 Outside Lands Music And Arts Festival at Golden Gate Park on Aug. 11.

According to Perloff, the addition of the cannabis awareness feature was a successful draw. “We’re already planning next year and look forward to introducing even more activities like this year’s debut of Grass Lands – celebrating cannabis culture in the Bay Area and beyond – a big hit (no pun intended!) among this year’s festival-goers,” he remarked. 

The Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival debuted in 2008 with a lineup that featured Radiohead, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and Jack Johnson with about 60 other bands. Stretching over three days in August, the inaugural event scored an overall attendance of 130,070. Box office sales for the first event hit $11.1 million with ticket prices ranging from $85 to $249.50.

Jump ahead 10 years, and the fans who attended the three-day weekend in August  were treated to a lineup that featured The Weeknd headlining the opening night of the event. 

On the second day Florence + The Machine capped the action, marking the first time that a female-fronted band has headlined the main stage during the event’s history. Finally, on the last night the top draw was another female history-maker, Janet Jackson – the first solo female main stage headliner to close the festival.

The Weeknd was a mainstay attraction at festivals in many markets this year in addition to Outside Lands. He nabbed headlining slots at other prominent festivals such as Chicago’s Lollapalooza; Coachella in Indio, Calif.; the sixth-annual Life is Beautiful Music & Art Festival in downtown Las Vegas and Milwaukee’s Summerfest among others.

No stranger to the festival stage, the Canadian R&B artist also included a host of festival dates when he toured last year to promote his 2016 release Starboy. Although last year’s trek was set in arenas, his schedule also included 18 festivals, primarily in Europe.

Florence + The Machine’s history-making headlining stint at Outside Lands was one of eight festivals included on the band’s 2018 schedule. Festival gigs in Poland, Spain and Germany kicked off a run of summer dates that supported the June release of High as Hope, the group’s fourth studio album. Along with the Bay Area event, Flo + Co. also appeared at Montreal’s Osheaga Festival in August and the Skookum Festival in Vancouver in September. They also headed up the 

second night of Superfly’s new three-day Denver event, the Grandoozy festival in its first year – which took place at Denver’s Overland Park Sept. 14-16. A main stage appearance followed on Sept. 22 as second-night closer at the Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas. Now with all of the festival dates behind them, Florence + The Machine is currently heading 

into a final stretch of arena and shed shows on the band’s North American jaunt. A series of concerts in U.K. arenas will follow in November.

Jackson’s headlining turn on the closing night at Outside Lands featured many of the hits from her long career, but also supported her most recent album, 2015’s Unbreakable. 

The festival came during the final days of her yearlong “State of the World” tour that wrapped on Oct. 2. She also made festival appearances at New York’s Panorama event on July 28 and was one of the artists – along with The Weeknd – performing at the Global Citizen festival in New York City’s Central Park on Sept. 29.

Looking beyond the North American events, Lollapalooza Brazil ranks as the top earner among international festivals in 2018, according to Pollstar’s reported box office data, with a gross totaling $23.3 million. The three-day music event sported a headcount 300,000 strong during the run at São Paulo’s Autodromo de Interlagos on March 23-25. 

Produced by T4F-Time For Fun, based in São Paulo, along with Austin’s C3 Presents, the top draws were Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, and The Killers. s