Tents with air conditioning $ 10,000, yoga and pilates classes, menus with multiple dishes prepared by chefs with wine pairings. It’s definitely not Woodstock.
The music festival Desert Trip, which begins Friday, is shaping up as the most luxurious and potentially lucrative of its kind. The series of concerts of three days, promises to be a mix between artists from the era of Woodstock— the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who (with an average age of 72 years)— but with amenities appropriate for over 50 years.
in Addition to tents with air conditioning, yoga classes and fine dining, there will be craft beer, an exhibition of photographs of classic rock and a record store with real albums.
The festival “expands the boundaries of what can be a concert,” said Gary Bongiovanni, the publication specializing in entertainment Pollstar. “This is a new concept, aimed at an audience very different from Coachella”.
Nicknamed “Oldchella”, viejo (old) and Coachella, Desert Trip will be in the same site in Indio, California, where the annual festival of music and art of Coachella is done in the spring. Goldenvoice (a division of AEG Worldwide), organizes both events, focused as much on experience as on the music.
“Coachella became a success because they invested much of their attention on fixing the land and creating entertainment,” said Bongiovanni. “For young people in the Coachella valley, the social element is a key, and in fact transcends the music.”
Desert Trip looking to do the same thing, but for the generation of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965). The music program is more quiet, with two bands per night instead of tens per day, and the offers are targeted to an audience with more money. Videos with the golden hues of the california sun published on the website of the festival show couples of middle age, enjoying meals at tables with white tablecloths and a camping area full of activities. There are stores of 10,000 dollars and tepees of 1,600, along with a shop with items vintage, a pinball machine and a market with organic products.
Even the package entries takes advantage of the nostalgia for retro: the attendees received their bracelets in a stylized box with a View-Master with images of the bands and the desert. “A flash back to the original experience of virtual reality”, says the box.
The VIP tickets for Desert Trip cost 1,599 dollars. Tickets for a single day cost $ 199; and the passes of three days $ 399. For the first weekend have been sold out, but there is still a chance of getting into the dinners of four courses (225 dollars per person) and the culinary experience of “all you can eat” (179 dollars).
“either way, there will be hot dogs $ 9,” he said with good humor Bongiovanni.
“This is an audience that will pay for some extra”, he added. “Happy to drop the silver for a dinner linda if you have the chance to do so.”
The full line up of the concert and all the amenities will be repeated for the second weekend, from 14 to 16 October, in the same place. They expect about 150,000 people in two weekends.
Young, who played at Woodstock and will be presented on the second night of Desert Trip, said that “the public will be really surprised.”
“they Will feel very special to see this all at the same time,” he said. “It is a celebration that is what it is.”
Bongiovanni expected that this will be a “spectacular success” that developers will want to replicate.
“it is Not something that you can duplicate across the country, or to repeat very often,” he said. “There are a limited number of artists to fill that stage.”
The chances of an audience of elderly spend the weekend comfortably rocking out to the music of their youth has no price.
“These are bands that have been fans for decades,” said Bongiovanni. “And you know quite well that perhaps neither you nor they will be able to get to see.”
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