Several Michigan music festivals called it quits after a “dismal” 2024 and others are reassessing their future. Local Spins takes a deeper dive into the emerging crisis.
‘Dismal’ Turnouts: It was a common theme at many Michigan music festivals in 2024. (Photo/Anna Sink)
The post-summer headlines across the globe tell a troubling tale for a critical part of the music industry.
Support our coverage of
West Michigan's music scene
NPR.org: “So many music festivals have been canceled this year. What’s going on?”
Bloomberg.com: “Music Festivals Canceled This Year Reveal Rising Costs of Producing Large Events”
Variety.com: “Live Music Is Bigger Than Ever, So Why Are Festivals Canceling?”
BBC.com: “High costs leaving festivals ‘struggling to survive’”
And SFGate.com was even more candid: “We’re f—ed’: California’s music festival bubble is bursting.”
The festival downturn reared its head dramatically in Michigan as well, with several popular festivals announcing that 2024 would be their last.
Wellston’s Hoxeyville Music Festival, Lake City’s Earthwork Harvest Gathering and Marquette’s Marquette Area Blues Festival all declared that this would be the final salvo after a long run of annual musical celebrations, while others such as the two-year-old Fair Ground Festival in Hastings announced a one-year hiatus with plans for returning in 2026.
The Final Salvo: Hoxeyville 2024 (Photo/Anna Sink)
Several national headliners scheduled for Hoxeyville 2024 in August canceled at the 11th hour, citing concerns about payment for their services, and national publications citing rising production costs have even described the widespread situation as a “festival recession.”
As an example, the Shagbark Music and Arts Festival in southern Kent County – once known as Cowpie Music Festival – suffered “dismal’ attendance for its August 2024 event while facing a substantial increase in overall production costs.
“Costs have risen across the board by approximately 30 percent,” said Farmer John Crissman, owner of Shagbark Farm that hosts the annual music festival. “Specifically labor, including volunteer help. Even that gets compensated.”
The downturn – which also has affected a fair number of concert venues and nightclubs – comes after a particularly robust 2023, a post-COVID explosion of live music that many analysts attributed to pent-up demand from fans.
So was 2024 a market correction, a swing-back readjustment?
Not every festival suffered this past year. Some larger events such as Electric Forest, Upheaval Festival and Breakaway Music Festival boasted strong turnouts. And Local Spins will once again be publishing an extensive list of music festivals for the coming year, so the scene remains vibrant.
But other festivals certainly faced challenges and several organizers even declined to respond to our requests for comment on the situation. The reasons cited by some Michigan festival organizers vary, but higher costs, lower attendance and increased competition for entertainment-related dollars all played a role.
Add to that the hundreds of free outdoor concerts sponsored by communities across the state every summer, and it’s clear that some of that certainly has impacted the festival scene.
Here’s what some organizers are saying:
FESTIVAL PRODUCTION COST INCREASES
Seth Bernard (Earthwork Harvest Gathering): “Almost all of our costs have gone up. There are many fixed costs associated with putting on a multi-day festival event with camping that cannot be avoided and have gone up, from camping permits to porta johns, from fuel to food. In some cases, costs have doubled. Generally, I’d say we’ve had about a 20 to 30 percent increase in fixed costs. It was very tricky to navigate an increase in overhead while also experiencing a downturn in ticket sales as a family business with no investors or financial partners.”
Seth Bernard: Higher costs, lower turnouts. (Photo/Anna Sink)
Walt Lindala (Marquette Area Blues Festival) – “First and foremost, the talent fees have increased. Not by a lot, but enough that a smaller festival like ours felt it. This really has been post-pandemic. Also, costs of tent, stage, porta-potty rental has gone up. And we also had to pay more to rent the park from the City of Marquette. It’s not that they raised the fees, but their support of the event went down. Fees that used to be waived by the city in totality were now only being waived by 50 percent increasing our expenses.”
Megan Lavell (Fair Ground Festival/Thornapple Arts Council) – “We also host a Jazz Festival — we are currently planning for our 21st event — and we have seen the costs go up for that just like everything else. The same is true for Hastings Live (concert series). I’m not sure we’ve seen a huge jump in production costs — just a continual steady increase over time.”
ATTENDANCE DROPS & INCREASED ENTERTAINMENT COMPETITION
Farmer John Crissman (Shagbark Music & Arts Festival, formerly Cowpie Music Festival) – “Attendance was dismal compared to years past. I take part of the blame for letting the kids rebrand (from Cowpie). COVID has definitely changed everything from sleep habits to recreation choices. I think the drop in attendance has a lot to do with loyalty in the industry. It used to be that if someone was planning an event and they saw that another well-established festival was on the same date, they would seek alternative dates. It’s become obvious who is in it for the money and who is in it for the love of the music community. You can’t blame the customers for checking out something new, but when they want to come back, it might be too late.”
Seth Bernard (Earthwork Harvest Gathering) – Since (2020) we have seen people experience economic hardship, heightened trepidation with large gatherings in public, and an explosion of new options for live events and experiences. There has also been a trend of smaller numbers of people from a younger demographic attending and participating in some of these festivals. We have needed to raise ticket prices incrementally in order to meet rising costs, and to continue to pay musicians and staff. Those rising costs of ticket prices are painful for music lovers, who used to be able to attend many concerts over the course and festivals over the course of the summer, and now have to limit what they can do based on what they can afford. … For a while, there was a small number of mom and pop festivals in Michigan and for the most part, we all supported each other. A rising tide lifted all boats. We even had festival roundtable retreat weekends, where we planned together and learned how to better understand one another’s goals and visions. Things started to change when more corporate money came in without having relationships with any of us, but having a large amount of capital with which to hire many national headliners and other creative practitioners. Since then, it has been a combination of larger, corporate events and also new smaller boutique mom and pop festivals. Market saturation has played a role, but I would point at corporate greed as the factor that has hurt what was otherwise, a culture of reciprocity. I still believe it is and will continue to be possible for every small community to nurture small gatherings that bring us together in healthy and healing ways. We’re going through a difficult bottleneck in society right now, and it is going to require a lot of reflection and necessary adaptation.”
Competition for Fair Ground Fest & Other Festivals: Other live music options, sports and more have an impact.
Jennifer Hudson-Prenkert (Sounds of the Zoo Festival) – “I think there are multiple factors contributing to the drop-offs in attendance. COVID had a massive impact on live events and we are still recovering from it. The economy has had a direct impact on the industry, as well as the natural disasters that have taken place this year. It’s also an election year and overall, it feels like people are acting more cautious with their choices. … I have noticed a big divide between the larger venues and the smaller local venues. It seems that there is a survival mentality rather than a community vibe to support one another. The only way we will make it is to work together. Collaboration over competition.”
Megan Lavell (Fair Ground Festival) – We believe the lower attendance is a post-COVID problem. We don’t have any statistics to support it, but anecdotally we’ve heard, “We got used to being at home, realized how much we liked it, and just didn’t start going out again.” For us in Hastings, I think it’s a unique combination of issues: the post-COVID tendency to stay home; the fact that the music series we host are no longer new and exciting; people are used to having a lot of music options here so they’re more selective about what they attend (rather than attending everything just because there is something going on); and ticket costs. … People here don’t mind paying for a ticket to a high school football game, but they don’t think they should have to pay for concert/play tickets.”
Cathy King (Holler Fest, which took 2024 off and hasn’t committed yet to 2025) – “We decided to take a hiatus this year to assess what we need to make the festival more manageable in terms of infrastructure and additional personnel. … I don’t know if we have felt the effects of (competition), but there does seem to be a proliferation of festivals and one-day events throughout the state. Lots of small towns offer weekend events and they are usually free.”
SIMILAR LINEUPS FOR MANY FESTIVALS (As one Local Spins reader put it it bluntly: “It’s always the same bands at all of these festivals.”)
Seth Bernard (Earthwork Harvest Gathering) – “I think the challenge, and the responsibility of artistic directors of festivals that have a built-in crowd is to both deliver on the familiar faces that help make up the character of an event and also put new artists in front of those crowds to expose the audience to new talent and new artists to music lovers. I think it’s important for festivals and venues to communicate with one another and be aware of each other’s plans so that there isn’t too much unintended overlap. That said, there are also going to be regional musicians who have become a part of the fabric of certain festival communities, and will make many appearances throughout the course of a summer, switching it up with setlists and sit-ins. We have a special family of musicians who know and love each other, and happily collaborate and cooperate, and the circle is constantly stretching and growing and including new people. I don’t think having many of the same bands on the same bills is a huge problem without the problem of oversaturation and inflation already existing.”
John Crissman (Shagbark Music and Arts Festival) – “Michigan has one of the best pools of musical talent anywhere in the world. There are also a lot of bands that just need more practice, voice lessons, and an understanding of music theory. I understand that when a band isn’t playing, it isn’t earning, but oversaturation in the same market is on both the artist and the venue. The artist will get paid either way, but the venue has to decide if they will draw if they played the week before at a festival 60 miles away.”
Megan Lavell (Fair Ground Festival) – “This is something we have mixed feelings on. We tried to balance groups that have a solid Michigan support base, while also bringing in groups that aren’t on a bunch of other festival lineups in Michigan.’
Copyright 2024, Spins on Music LLC
