Murder on the Dancefloor: How Selfishness is Killing the Music Festival
Rent a farmer’s field for a few days, book a handful of artists, grab some friends, and light a joint. There you have it: your very own music festival. It’s a simple formula, but the music festival was never intended to be anything more than a celebration of art, culture, and community. Unfortunately, something’s been lurking beneath the stage, and it has corrupted the festival experience for people who just want to enjoy the music they love in its rawest, most immersive form. Writer Beatrice Forman alleges that Gen-Z is the primary suspect in the murder of the music festival. In her article for the University of Pennsylvania’s 34th Street Magazine, Forman claims our generation’s social media addiction has transformed modern music festivals into “incubators of Instagram clout,” where music is only an accessory to events outfitted with branded experiences and influencer bait. While she properly recognizes the influence of Gen-Z’s egomania, I find that Forman frames the wrong culprit; selfishness in both the boardroom and the pit has been killing the music festival since long before the advent of social media, beginning with the onset of commercialization.
At its heart, the music festival is an event where thousands of music-lovers unite for multiple days in a temporary community. We can thank none other than the famous Woodstock of 1969 for our definition. For three days in August, an estimated 400,000 people descended on a dairy farm owned by Max Yasgur in Bethel, New York to spread messages of peace and love scored by the music of the 60’s. Despite its poor infrastructure, congestion, and lack of security, Woodstock was a nonviolent and cordial gathering — a rare display in a time plagued by political and social discord. In fact, people went out of their way to be kind to others. When Woodstock experienced extreme food scarcity, the Hog Farm, a famed West Coast commune, established a free kitchen using fresh produce from local farms to feed hungry festival goers. The Bethel community also got involved when they caught wind of Woodstock’s struggles to support its massive crowd, sending a supply drop of water, canned food, medical supplies, and around 10,000 sandwiches via Army helicopter. Above all else, Woodstock ’69 proved that music festivals were not exclusively venues for music listening; they were also thriving communities of kindness and generosity.
To Forman, today’s music festivals prioritize satisfying the social norms of the Online Generation, bearing little resemblance to the counterculture of Woodstock ’69. “Music takes a backseat to the spectacle,” she says, referring to the infamous 2017 Fyre Festival that stranded around 5,000 people on a remote Bahamian island with little food or shelter — oh, and no music. Forman assigns blame to Gen-Z for Fyre Festival’s failed luxury-vacay, star-studded dream, claiming festival executives only attempted to satisfy the desires of its clout-chasing audience until ticket demand was too high to accommodate. Fyre Festival may be an extreme example of Gen-Z’s destructive social media habits, but Foreman alleges that popular music festivals are still “copying its central ethos” and catering to Gen-Z’s self-obsession. As a Gen-Zer who grew up with the internet at my fingertips since grade school, I won’t deny that I face challenges disconnecting from my digital persona, but to say we are single-handedly killing the music festival is an overstatement. We are only a fraction of the dilemma, feeding the larger beast of selfishness that’s been shifting the focus of music festivals since before we were born.
The lucrative model of the modern music festival — which was created right after Woodstock — has made it near impossible to reinforce the basic doctrines that strengthen community among festival goers. After Woodstock ’69, corporations realized they could commercialize the wildly popular festival experience, and, as most capitalist tales go, they did so until it lost all the qualities that made it extraordinary, such as populism, accessibility, and nonconformity. Festival executives began to dress their events head to toe in sponsorships. From seeing the dominating Bacardí Stage to the loudly-titled Coke Studio at Governor’s Ball, I’ve felt commodified, like a sheep in a flock, existing in a bastardization of a formerly human space. Rising ticket prices have also turned attending festivals into a financial burden. General admission tickets to Woodstock today would cost about $270 compared to 1969’s $18 (it is important to note that most attendees got in for free). Corporations have hidden music — art meant to be heard by everyone — behind an inequitable paywall. Even if you consider the price reasonable by today’s standards, consider the following: would 400,000 young people who oppose materialism and corporatism happily pay $270 for entrance to Yasgur’s Farm? Even if some paid up, the identity and spirit of Woodstock would be fragmented beyond recognition.
Like Fyre Festival, Woodstock ’99 demonstrates the influence of corporate greed on the festival goer; however, it equally shows that selfishness is not exclusive to the corporation. Netflix’s docuseries Trainwreck tracks the planning phase of Woodstock ’99, during which promoter John Scher and Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang prioritized money over cultivating a genuine music listening experience. The two frequently cut corners until the festival site could barely accommodate its 400,000 people in attendance. Negligence, combined with hot weather, inaccessibility to clean water, improper facilities, and poor sanitation, enraged those in attendance. When tested through arduous conditions, festival goers at Woodstock ’99 did not support one another like they did at Woodstock ’69; they instead trampled each other in mosh pits, threw trash at musicians, vandalized artwork, and committed acts of violence. By the end of the three-day festival, three people had died and countless were injured. Though provoked by selfishness built into the framework of the festival, the crowd — composed of mostly Gen-Xers and older Millennials — acted on impulse and indulgence, cultivating an anarchic environment where unity became impossible to achieve. Forman claims that “the future of the music festival is grim” because of our generation’s inability to be present, but Woodstock ’99 exemplifies an unplugged event where past generations failed to live up to the basic tenets of the festival and principles of humanity.
It is our job to heal the fractured bonds of the music festival community. I recognize that it is controversial to assign responsibility to the consumer for issues of consumption and commercialization, but festival executives believe in one thing: giving a shit will bleed them dry. We can’t waste our singular ability to provide immediate relief from the selfishness of the contemporary festival format. Like purchasing from environmentally conscious and frequenting food chains that embrace social justice, we can practice conscious kindness that can universally improve the experience and culture in subtle ways. We can check up on the stranger next to us if they’re wobbly, offer sunscreen to people when they look a little red, call out unseemly behavior, let the short person sneak in front of us for a better view, and put away our phones during the performance. There are countless other ways to exercise care at the festival grounds, but these practices can get us started down the right path.
When we begin to care for one another in the pit, we can drown out the noise of corporate greed and start focusing on the music. “All that’s essential to a good music festival is good music and good company,” Forman asserts — and I couldn’t agree more. Regrettably, music executives have cultivated selfishness and greed in the boardroom which translates to pettiness and vitriol on the ground. But I believe in the power of community demonstrated at Woodstock ’69, and I think we too are all capable of asserting our core values with a bit of selflessness and song.
