2012 Lineup

[TYLER_4]

i now declare the cure debate OVER!!! please.

[eFestivals]

come on, give us the juice

OK, I reserve the right to do the occasional beverage joke, but no more gardening or farming ones I promise.

[JBarbour]

i now declare the cure debate OVER!!! please.

[beau1]

Or Pheonix which is rumoured to be in Kettering.

[TYLER_4]

Just need to sort the wheat from the chaff - and stop the dodgy horticultural and agricultural references - and I might have something for you.

[eFestivals]

how do you obtain rumours then Neil? you say chaff do people get in contact with you with rumours or do you go round a network of contacts for info? always wondered this.

I get the rumours cos people tell me stuff.

Not saying more than that cos I don't want to give too much away. But at their simpleist it's website users much like you that mail in all sorts of stuff they've heard - much of it isn't true, but there's always a few nuggets in there so the crap needs to be identified and (sorry! ) weeded out to leave the good stuff.

[TYLER_4]

I get the rumours cos people tell me stuff.

Not saying more than that cos I don't want to give too much away. But at their simpleist it's website users much like you that mail in all sorts of stuff they've heard - much of it isn't true, but there's always a few nuggets in there so the crap needs to be identified and (sorry! ) weeded out to leave the good stuff.

[PurpleFire]

I get the rumours cos people tell me stuff.

Not saying more than that cos I don't want to give too much away. But at their simpleist it's website users much like you that mail in all sorts of stuff they've heard - much of it isn't true, but there's always a few nuggets in there so the crap needs to be identified and (sorry! ) weeded out to leave the good stuff.

Edited January 30, 2012 by PurpleFire

[lharris92]

hope the pruning is going well in your garden efests.

glad to hear there will be some news soon, even if it isn't that much.

keep up the good work

[PigOnAntibiotics]

its never too early for a drum roll, go go go

[pablopablo]

I think we're digging ourselves a hole here with these gardening puns...

[VCK]

I hope the festival returns to it's roots this year instead of barking up the wrong tree. Melvin Benn isn't one to call a spade a spade but I have faith the line-up will be good after official Facebook has planted the seed in our heads.

[stylishkids]

This idea that The Cure can't headline Reading and Leeds because the demographic is different is not one that I can agree with!

The market and more importantly the economic market is changing. We all base our assumption on FR catering their line up to the 16 - 24 age group. However, the economy is in a recession and the group that's been hit the hardest is this age group. FR's target market. And it's showing no signs of picking up.

The BBC website's main story today is university applications and how they have decreased in England by 9.9%. So you get people not deciding to go to university and there been an extremely difficult job market to walk into and the government finding it difficult for private firms to create jobs so unemployment especially youth unemployment can decrease. The fact is the age group that FR caters to may struggle to get the money together to actually attend the festival if they like the line up or not. So FR's target market is struggling and instead of changing their line up to cater for other age groups and bring different people in who might have the money they are going to continue the same business plan? You could make an argument that their business plan has started to fail slightly over the past few years. As youth employment has increased, ticket sales have dropped. From 2009 selling out straight away. To last year barely doing it at the last week or so.

Melvin will see that his target market is struggling. Instead of catering the line up mainly for it, he could see that the festival has to change to ensure that he can bring in other people and it can continue its place as one of the major festivals. Booking The Cure could be his plan and changing the line up so he can cater for other ages. He still needs to cater for the young age group mainly because he can't have a huge shift, but say if he had The Killers, Foo Fighters and The Cure then it might open a few potential customers whilst trying his best to maintain the ones he already has. The festival can change its approach. People are seeing the past trends and just believing that it will continue.

If you see the economy is changing in a way that it will prove negative for you and do absolutely nothing about it then it's a poor move. Melvin's a smart business man and I can't just see him doing nothing about it and continuing the same approach that he has been doing in the past. The Cure can headline Reading and Leeds in my eyes.

[jump]

SNIP

[gazza_20]

We knew it would, the majority is 16+ and it'll sell easily, especially with a depsoit system, providing he gets the lineup right.

[beau1]

This idea that The Cure can't headline Reading and Leeds because the demographic is different is not one that I can agree with!

The market and more importantly the economic market is changing. We all base our assumption on FR catering their line up to the 16 - 24 age group. However, the economy is in a recession and the group that's been hit the hardest is this age group. FR's target market. And it's showing no signs of picking up.

The BBC website's main story today is university applications and how they have decreased in England by 9.9%. So you get people not deciding to go to university and there been an extremely difficult job market to walk into and the government finding it difficult for private firms to create jobs so unemployment especially youth unemployment can decrease. The fact is the age group that FR caters to may struggle to get the money together to actually attend the festival if they like the line up or not. So FR's target market is struggling and instead of changing their line up to cater for other age groups and bring different people in who might have the money they are going to continue the same business plan? You could make an argument that their business plan has started to fail slightly over the past few years. As youth employment has increased, ticket sales have dropped. From 2009 selling out straight away. To last year barely doing it at the last week or so.

Melvin will see that his target market is struggling. Instead of catering the line up mainly for it, he could see that the festival has to change to ensure that he can bring in other people and it can continue its place as one of the major festivals. Booking The Cure could be his plan and changing the line up so he can cater for other ages. He still needs to cater for the young age group mainly because he can't have a huge shift, but say if he had The Killers, Foo Fighters and The Cure then it might open a few potential customers whilst trying his best to maintain the ones he already has. The festival can change its approach. People are seeing the past trends and just believing that it will continue.

If you see the economy is changing in a way that it will prove negative for you and do absolutely nothing about it then it's a poor move. Melvin's a smart business man and I can't just see him doing nothing about it and continuing the same approach that he has been doing in the past. The Cure can headline Reading and Leeds in my eyes.

[dannyv18]

When can we look at finding out? Tonight? or looking later into the week?

[lharris92]

in march sometime when the flowers start to flourish

[jump]

Also, i went to Bestival last year and was surprised how young the audience and general demographic were. I'd say a good chuck of the audience were younger than me and my GF (I'm 21, she is 22) and the rest went up to the ago of 30 max. It has much more in common demographically with Reading, than it did with Glastonbury. For example, my parents came to Bestival and they were by far some of the oldest people there.

The idea that The Cure somehow, 'don't fit' with a 16-24 audience is completely false, one of their main audience brackets is the lonely teenager, always has been always will be.

[eFestivals]

Also, i went to Bestival last year and was surprised how young the audience and general demographic were.

they weren't there because of the cure but in spite of them.

That's the audience that Bestival gets. They don't know half of the acts on the bill. They go because it's Bestival and its important that they're seen to be at Bestival.

That sound harsh on Bestival goers .... but all the same for a very large chunk of those people aged 20-30 at Bestival what I say there applies.

[JBarbour]

Jack White's solo album out in april. NME stage?

[beau1]

they weren't there because of the cure but in spite of them.

That's the audience that Bestival gets. They don't know half of the acts on the bill. They go because it's Bestival and its important that they're seen to be at Bestival.

That sound harsh on Bestival goers .... but all the same for a very large chunk of those people aged 20-30 at Bestival what I say there applies.

[beau1]

How many young people were there because they were the Bestival headliner and how many young people actually go to Cure gigs?

[thetime]

I'd ask the same about a band like Pulp.

How many young people actually go to Cure gigs? Quite a few, wouldn't say its in the majority but a good chuck of their audience is under 25 and since 2006, that percentage of young cure fans at Cure gigs has grown (at the gigs I've been to anyway).

Edited January 30, 2012 by thetime

[eFestivals]

I'd say that would apply to most festivals

nope, not when it comes to the headliners it doesn't. Or come to that, lots of famous bands down the bill.

My point is that even if they didn't know The Cure (which they did when Friday I'm IN Love, In-Between Days, Just Like Heaven, Lovecats etc were played) they enjoyed the show, which I would think would apply at Reading and Leeds too.

Nope, massively less so.

Bestival goers go to Bestival because it's Bestival. The bands barely fall into their consideration. They can do this and do do this because the financial side of things doesn't much touch their consideration either.

While Reading/Leeds sells an amount because it's Reading/Leeds, it also needs the acts to appeal too. The people who go have a limited budget and if the acts don't appeal they'll look to see which other fests has the appealing acts and will consider spending their limited festival budget on that other fest.

There's a completely different thing going on with these festivals and their audiences.

(What I've written above are huge generalisations and of course don't apply to everyone. No offence is meant, it's written how it is to get those ideas across)