Pukkelpop 2020

[lighthouse]

1 minute ago, johnybegood said:

There are thousand of nostalgic people that buy tickets for Brakrock or for Lokerse punk day. And these oldies spend more money in the bars that young people drinking in the camping.

I don’t like Sum 41, but they are big enough to get a slot in Werchter Main Stage.

I totally get that, but does Pukkelpop want to be a nostalics fest? 

[johnybegood]

6 minutes ago, lighthouse said:

I totally get that, but does Pukkelpop want to be a nostalics fest? 

I always loved this festival because there were very young people mixed with older people, being all in perfect harmony. With 8 stages running there is space for everybody. Last year they booked Johnny Marr, Mike D, Eels, PoR or Pennywise... so they haven’t forgotten 100% about nostalgic people...

Let’s see what will they prepare for 2021...

Edited May 7, 2020 by johnybegood

[Jochen]

The whole hardcore/punkrockscene is going through rough times, with Groezrock kind of broke & Ieperfest downsized and needing crowdfunding. I think PKP saw these red flags well so they cancelled the Shelter and booked even more dance/hiphop instead. This was probably a wise decision. 

However, I do understand Johny that  Belgian festivals are missing a lot of great bands because they tour in August and we don't have a good festival to welcome them (Brackrock doesn't book the class A acts & Alcatraz is not the right festival for these bands). 

As for PKP, bands such as Rise Against, Sum 41, Dropkick Murphys (...) will still work because they have a fan base way beyond the typical punkrockscene. This is very different with for example Sick of It All & Lagwagon. Those fans often care less about other genres, and than PKP is a bit too expensive. Also, these bands aren't really known with the allround young festivalvisitor anymore, which is the target audience of PKP. 

 

 

 

[Salva]

1 hour ago, Jochen said:

The whole hardcore/punkrockscene is going through rough times, with Groezrock kind of broke & Ieperfest downsized and needing crowdfunding. I think PKP saw these red flags well so they cancelled the Shelter and booked even more dance/hiphop instead. This was probably a wise decision. 

However, I do understand Johny that  Belgian festivals are missing a lot of great bands because they tour in August and we don't have a good festival to welcome them (Brackrock doesn't book the class A acts & Alcatraz is not the right festival for these bands). 

As for PKP, bands such as Rise Against, Sum 41, Dropkick Murphys (...) will still work because they have a fan base way beyond the typical punkrockscene. This is very different with for example Sick of It All & Lagwagon. Those fans often care less about other genres, and than PKP is a bit too expensive. Also, these bands aren't really known with the allround young festivalvisitor anymore, which is the target audience of PKP. 

 

 

 

Groezrock going broke and Ieperfest downsizing has also to do with the fact that metal fests like GMM and Alcatraz are slowly turning into rock fests. List all punkrock and hardcore bands of the 2020 line-ups of those 2 and you have a perfect headliner set for Groezrock and Ieperfest. Not even 5 years ago those bands would in effect have been booked by Groez or Ieper. There simply is too much in that niche for the potential audience nowadays.

[thewayiam]

25 minutes ago, Salva said:

Groezrock going broke and Ieperfest downsizing has also to do with the fact that metal fests like GMM and Alcatraz are slowly turning into rock fests. List all punkrock and hardcore bands of the 2020 line-ups of those 2 and you have a perfect headliner set for Groezrock and Ieperfest. Not even 5 years ago those bands would in effect have been booked by Groez or Ieper. There simply is too much in that niche for the potential audience nowadays.

Shame, Groezrock 2016 was a great lineup

[johnybegood]

Bad Religion had sold almost 15k tickets for their Spanish 2020 tour, in 6 cities. 

Punk In Drublic festival is getting bigger and bigger (with Belgian date this year for the first time)

I think that these bands are a good value for money and they are all touring Europe in August.

Groezrock is a great festival and Hans is a cool guy. I had no idea that they had financial problems. Such a pity.

[Ken19]

Belgium is not Spain.

[gigi21]

2 hours ago, johnybegood said:

I am pretty sure than a Shelter headlined by Bad Religion or Sum 41 and 4 or 5 Punk Rock Holiday bands before them (Lagwagon, Strung Out, Zebrahead, Sick Of It All...) can sell 4K tickets easily. 2020 was a year without Groezrock. 

Just look how many tickets are sold in the punk day of Lokerse Feesten and how many tickets are sold now in Brakrock and how many did this small festival used to sell when the Shelter was running.

Not all PKP stages are full during all day. I have seen empty concerts at 6pm in the Marquee, Main Stage and in the smaller stages.

In the last years all nice punk bands are touring Europe in August, so new punk and rock festivals are appearing (Tsunami, Bay Fest, Crash Festival) or growing (Punk Rock Holiday or Brakrock). It is so stupid killing the Shelter just when you can choose between tons of cool bands touring Europe (much more bands avaliable than in 2016)

 

I understand you, but maybe to put some more djs and a laser show costs less and attracts more people than having a stage full of punk bands for 3 days.

Another consideration I can do is that a relevant part of the crowd who goes there mainly for contemporary indie/alternative rock bands (which is one of the biggest slices of the PKP crowd) is today more attracted by electro/experimental/alt-pop sets rather than by old guitar bands, which still costs ways more (I imagine) and maybe won't sell more tickets.

As I said, I hope that PKP invest every year more on quality and variety rather than massive pop names, but I also perfectly understand their latest years choices.

[Jochen]

1 hour ago, Salva said:

Groezrock going broke and Ieperfest downsizing has also to do with the fact that metal fests like GMM and Alcatraz are slowly turning into rock fests. List all punkrock and hardcore bands of the 2020 line-ups of those 2 and you have a perfect headliner set for Groezrock and Ieperfest. Not even 5 years ago those bands would in effect have been booked by Groez or Ieper. There simply is too much in that niche for the potential audience nowadays.

GMM has always booked a fair amount of punk & hardcorebands.  In my view, PKP is simply following musical trends and this particular scene has become less popular, certainly among youngster. Also, popular punkish music has shifted a bit towards a more indie-ish approach (Equal Idiots, The Chats, Viagra Boys..) 

This can change off course (f.e. Machine Gun Kelly wrote a poppunk song) and in that case, PKP will follow. Let us remember that PKP isn't the alternative music festival anymore where different sub & countercultures come together and celebrate. Instead, it tends to serve a a mainstream audience that don't care about genres and boxes and discovers music by following streaming algorithms. This different from  Dour Festival, where every stage is a nichefestival on its own. 

[Ken19]

Dour is a big underground festival. With a very loyal fanbase. Pukkelpop is the perfect festival for 16 year olds to do their first festival, they are not that loyal.

[DDave]

Caribou is/are around next August. 

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158330003527208&id=65835432207

[Semprini]

On 5/7/2020 at 5:32 PM, Jochen said:

Let us remember that PKP isn't the alternative music festival anymore where different sub & countercultures come together and celebrate. Instead, it tends to serve a a mainstream audience that don't care about genres and boxes and discovers music by following streaming algorithms. 

Think you're being a bit unfair to the organisation of PKP and a lot of the people who go each year. Yes, it's not as underground as it used to be but that comes with the territory when you move from a one day, one stage event to multiple stages over 4 days. You're not going to sell 65,000 tickets a day with niche acts that the vast majority of people haven't heard of so they have to book a bit of pop and other more mainstream artists if they want to make it a viable operation. I'd argue that RW serves a more mainstream audience than PKP but when you have to sell 80,000 tickets a day of course you're going to have to book big acts. That's not a criticism - RW is what it is - but more an assessment of how things need to be to make these festivals work.

Having said that, with over 200 bands and DJs playing each year there's always loads of great up and coming and relatively unknown acts on the line up. I like to think that I'm fairly up to speed with new music but they always have amazing artists that I've never heard and end up falling in love with. I feel that PKP as a festivals is a bit, 'damned if we do, damned if we don't' in that they have to balance between putting on loads of quality acts over 8 stages while needing to have some big and expensive headliners to appease the people who want that sort of thing. They clearly don't have a bottomless pit of cash so can't do both but that doesn't lessen people's expectations. If they spunk all the money on a huge name then the undercard suffers but if they have 'weaker' headliners and a strong bill throughout then people moan about the lack of big names.

Yes, PKP is a rite of passage for lots of teens and that's great because they're the next generation of PKP'ers and festival goers in general. To imply though that they are the main audience is way off the mark and not accurate at all imo. People of all ages go to PKP and that diversity is one of its strengths and always has been.

[Jochen]

I don't mean to be derogatory towards PKP and the visitors, as I visited the festival several times myself.

I wanted to explain the average visitor of PKP has changed. It's not the 'die hard' nicheguy anymore, hanging out at the boiler room dancing on techno 24/7. It's a more allround music fan going from one genre to another, not caring about boxes. Some are more mainstream, some more into the alternative styles still available at PKP (i agree). I state that this is a shift in the philosophy of the festival (going from multiple niche audiences to more allround music fans) and this was one of my explanations of why PKP has cancelled the Shelter and will be less interested to book a band such as Sick of it All nowadays. 

An artists might by punk, metal, rap (...) sure, but it's very likely to be the safer option within the niche itself, mostly getting hyped in alternative media to some degree and being able to attract a crowd beyond the 'die hard' nichefans.(from that perspective, f.e. looking at the metalbands, I could understand almost all of them except for Evil Invaders who I consider only popular within the metalscene itself). This evolution is not something I necessarily disapprove, but I think it can help to explain PKP's line-up choices. 
 

On 5/7/2020 at 6:32 PM, Jochen said:

 

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Jochen