Announcement

[Black_Crow]

Surprised they arent announcing til nxt yr, thats given download a big start, no wonder download are holding back on nxt announcement

Wonder if Soni are struggling with bookings

[jump]

It hasn't given Download a big start at all, Download has 110k tickets to sell, Soni has 60k, won't make any difference at all.

How does waiting to announce mean they are struggling, SG has already stated that they have 3 great headliners ready to announce for next year, could just be that they are negotiating when to announce with bands, due to album releases, tours etc.

[luckysalt]

It hasn't given Download a big start at all, Download has 110k tickets to sell, Soni has 60k, won't make any difference at all.

How does waiting to announce mean they are struggling, SG has already stated that they have 3 great headliners ready to announce for next year, could just be that they are negotiating when to announce with bands, due to album releases, tours etc.

[Rancidpunk_76]

^^^^^ What he said!

This does raise the question, why not release news sooner rather than later unless there's a problem of some sort?...

No announcement until next year does raise alarm bells with me

[she bangs the drums]

In a radio interview on Real XS (formerly Rock Radio) Manchester several weeks ago, SG was interviewed and said that they would either make an announcment the first week in December or if they were not ready to announce it would be in the New Year. Whether this is because bands have not signed on the dotted line or whether they have to adhere to announcing at a certain time on the bands they have then who knows?

Personally I would have thought that it would be better to announce pre xmas than in January when lots of people will be skint? I know from personal experience that I over spend over the xmas period and then have to suffer the wait to get paid at the end of January so if they announce early January I doubt I will be buying a ticket until a later date no matter who the headliners are.

Edited December 8, 2011 by she bangs the drums

[Bisque]

I would have thought an announcement in December would be great for shifting tickets as Xmas presents for students (who all have the summer off so no work etc to get off). R+L are missing out on this too as a lot of attendees there are 16-23.

[lharris92]

no SoundGarden as Pearl Jam are playing dates on the weekend of soni

[luckysalt]

In a radio interview on Real XS (formerly Rock Radio) Manchester several weeks ago, SG was interviewed and said that they would either make an announcment the first week in December or if they were not ready to announce it would be in the New Year. Whether this is because bands have not signed on the dotted line or whether they have to adhere to announcing at a certain time on the bands they have then who knows?

Personally I would have thought that it would be better to announce pre xmas than in January when lots of people will be skint? I know from personal experience that I over spend over the xmas period and then have to suffer the wait to get paid at the end of January so if they announce early January I doubt I will be buying a ticket until a later date no matter who the headliners are.

[Rancidpunk_76]

no SoundGarden as Pearl Jam are playing dates on the weekend of soni

[biffoire]

I don't consider myself a particularly organised person but I want to know in the new year which festival I'll be going to and if funds become available over xmas, they go towards tickets. Leaving it so late is an obvious sign that they simply can't announce as they haven't got everything in place.

I wondered if they were waiting for the DL hype to die down but obviously not.

I think both DL and Soni have done well to co-exist however I'm wondering if the pool (especially for available and appropriate headliners) is running a little dry.

[Black_Crow]

From what you've put there that SG said, it sounds to me like they DON'T have the headliners booked.

Sounds like they hoped to have it booked up so they would be able to announce by first week of Dec, if things weren't ready by then they thought Soni announcement will just get lost in Christmas mania so we'll just leave it until new year when things calm down again.

I have no doubt they probably have some things in place, maybe a bunch of supports, a headliner, but sounds like they weren't happy to just go with that.

Download have announced early, IOW have too, and a lot of people will be going to those fests and both of those fests have announced all three headliners and all six are acts that have been around for over 20 years, appealing to the older crowd. Soni will have to try and attract a younger audience I think, cus I reckon that target audience, a lot of people will have plumped for either of those fests.

[biffoire]

Difference is, Reading sells out in 5 minutes flat regardless of line up usually. Soni doesn't and is competing directly with Download.

[biffoire]

At least the soni organisers aren't doing what they have done in the past by dating a HUGE announcement and then not being able to deliver.

[Black_Crow]

Difference is, Reading sells out in 5 minutes flat regardless of line up usually. Soni doesn't and is competing directly with Download.

[Black_Crow]

At least the soni organisers aren't doing what they have done in the past by dating a HUGE announcement and then not being able to deliver.

[biffoire]

Year one. They said they had a HUGE announcement. Date came and went with no mention of the announcement. Not even a note saying why it was postponed or when it would happen.

Announcement was finally made and it was far from HUGE. Not even medium.

[jump]

They did it last year too when they said they were going to announce 5 bands and then announced Biffy on there ownsome.

[biffoire]

I get that things fall through and booking bands for an international event doesn't always run smooth. I just thought it was unprofessional to ignore the fact the announcement hadn't been made and make no communication what so ever.

[Black_Crow]

They did it last year too when they said they were going to announce 5 bands and then announced Biffy on there ownsome.

[jump]

Download/Soni there's no difference, still run by organisers saying they've got brillaint headliners regardless of who they've actually got so Soni saying they've got "fantastic headliners" really goes mean nothing.

[biffoire]

There is a difference. Download do have fantastic headliners. Soni just have chat about fantastic headliners.

[Black_Crow]

There is a difference. Download do have fantastic headliners. Soni just have chat about fantastic headliners.

[kipper64]

Yeah in 2009 they said they had an easter announcement, but it was delayed by a few weeks. Turned out to be Heaven & Hell, who were amazing, so whether you thought that was huge or not is just opinion. Also Sonisphere have always been great at communicating with their customers, and have definitely improved since that one mishap from a few years back. They tweet more than any festival, they communicate a fair bit on their forums, they hold somewhat frequent focus groups etc... So all this talk about being 'unorganised/unproffessional' is both inaccurate and stupid.

Fact is headliner announcements in particular are always subject to a lot of things generally concerning the bands themselves, and a lot of the times it's out of the organisers control when they can or can't announce. Couple that with the fact they've got hundreds of shows to organise for the next year (and are a much smaller team than Livenation) as well as many festivals, Sonisphere isn't always the no.1 priority I'm sure. Sure announcing as early as possible is what they'll want to do, but if they can't then they can't. Download announced much earlier for 2011, yet sold less tickets than previous years, so similar with Sonisphere it won't really matter when they announce, just if the line up is good enough to sell out. Which it probably will be yet again. And with no Glasto, no High Voltage, there's a bit less competition and more attendees possibly looking for somewhere else or somewhere new to go. Hell even in 2010 when Download sold more than it ever has and had 120,000 attendees, Sonisphere still had an amazing line up and near enough sold out (in their 2nd year), so how well Download does or when Download announces isn't really relevant.

Edited December 9, 2011 by kipper64

[jump]

Yeah in 2009 they said they had an easter announcement, but it was delayed by a few weeks. Turned out to be Heaven & Hell, who were amazing, so whether you thought that was huge or not is just opinion. Also Sonisphere have always been great at communicating with their customers, and have definitely improved since that one mishap from a few years back. They tweet more than any festival, they communicate a fair bit on their forums, they hold somewhat frequent focus groups etc... So all this talk about being 'unorganised/unproffessional' is both inaccurate and stupid.

Fact is headliner announcements in particular are always subject to a lot of things generally concerning the bands themselves, and a lot of the times it's out of the organisers control when they can or can't announce. Couple that with the fact they've got hundreds of shows to organise for the next year (and are a much smaller team than Livenation) as well as many festivals, Sonisphere isn't always the no.1 priority I'm sure. Sure announcing as early as possible is what they'll want to do, but if they can't then they can't. Download announced much earlier for 2011, yet sold less tickets than previous years, so similar with Sonisphere it won't really matter when they announce, just if the line up is good enough to sell out. Which it probably will be yet again.

[biffoire]

Agreed black crow that its all about opinion. For me Sabbath are a bonus and my main draw is Metallica doing the black album.

But given the bands that have been ruled out or have played soni recently, it's not looking good.

I can see another year of them 'giving the smaller bands the opportunity to prove their worth' through lack of better options.

I reckon Kiss, Green Day and Machine Head. Maybe the Foos. (for anyone who didn't see them playing every venue on earth last year. )