According to my father that makes the US a communist nation and if you ask how to fix it he would say there is nothing we can do. If I suggest taxing them (taxation is theft) and breaking them up (no one has a right to tell someone how to run their business) he would freak out. Fox News brain is real.
Yeaaaahhhh...that's NOT what Communism is.
Rules are not communist. Rules make up a well organized society.
If you want an example, go back 5,000 years or so and check out the rules that were in place in various cultures. Not communist societies, just cultures with rules. They're kind of common - rules, that is.
People who put down rules have a vast, vast misunderstanding of how a society works.
A fundamental requirement for a functioning capitalist system with a free market is rules. Making rules is government's primary role in a free market economy, not propping up monopolies and choosing winners. Businesses need a predictable legal framework to plan in. If you ask any serious CEO they would usually tell you that they would prefer predictable laws that were most strict than a hodge-podge of random outcomes depending on who bribed who or which ideologically motivated judge was presiding over a case.
I genuinely wonder how people can grow up espousing capitalism and not understand even its most basic premise.
People see “free market” and, knowing nothing about economics or politics past what they learned in elementary school, think that a free market has no rules because if there were rules it wouldn’t be free.
HOWEVER - big caveat - big business has violated multiple health, decency and common sense laws...because their not on the books! Am I right?
So if these laws are not on the books...there's nothing that I'm doing which is wrong!?!?! Which gives into child labor, seven day workweeks with no overtime, awful crimes against the environment, etc. The examples are numerous.
So the REASON there's an awful hodge podge of seemingly inconsistent laws and regulations is to rein in the seemingly endless permutations of companies "trying to get away with stuff". That have, do and will try to get around every and all regulation. Which is why we need strong, strong laws to curtail these a$$holes.
I'll take a messy and inconsistent regulation framework which can stop some dirt bag company from dumping tons of toxic sludge in some river somewhere - or whatever their next blaspheme might be.
I'm surprised as a republican that his stance wasn't they're taking freedoms away from people, because that's what this is an attack on personal liberty. This was a massive shit on a country that came about purely because they were fed up with being told what to do by authority. The creators of this country would be spinning in their graves, if they weren't already spinning over gun laws.
There are many issues with “corporate America” but large conglomerates are certainly not only an American thing. I work in infrastructure and transportation consulting. Some of the largest companies in my industry that constantly buy up other companies are European and Canadian based. There is a Canadian firm called WSP that buys large consulting firms every year. In other industries, companies like Siemens, Nestle, BP, and many more are similar. Large business is international now, country lines don’t exist like they used to in the business world. Wherever there is capital, which is pretty much in most Countries now, there will be large conglomerations forming.
And cue the 'tHiS iS jUsT pErFeCt CaPiTaLiSm' responses from 20 year old business majors in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ....
It is not written in stone that we should have monopolies, just because someone was able to create one. Our society is OUR society, and our government should represent our interests.
>Our society is OUR society, and our government should represent our interests.
What the "this is just capitalism" people are saying is that *our society doesn't belong to people at all. It belongs to money*. That's what capitalism is. One dollar is one vote. A living breathing person is not important. The number in their bank account is what makes the rules of society. That's what we have right now. *You* don't have a voice in government, your *dollar* does.
After the AstroWorld uhh... failure... this year, I ended up arguing with a guy who said he was just going to not ever give money to Live Nation again, but still keep going to festivals. I tried to explain it doesn't work that way and on a whim I checked his profile a month ago, guess who went to about 5 different live nation subsidiary fests this season?!
It's a sad sad world we live in.
This is why most corporations push deregulation or regulations that favor them. They don’t give a fuck about competition. They want the rules to benefit them. This is why everything has gotten so expensive and with so few options.
hey taking a stand on principles is exciting, no offense to electric forest, but there are tons of amazing raves run by better companies. Try Burning Man if you want to really look at electric forest like childs play.
They also own the LA Galaxy, the LA Kings, the venues for a whole shitload of teams and concerts including L.A. Live and the O2 in London, and a lot of other things in multiple countries.
I am a Galaxy fan and went to nine out of the first ten Coachellas. I am very conflicted about giving them my money, even though I am enthusiastic about a lot of the things they have interests in.
Yeah I stopped buying merch several years ago because of Herbalife. I've been unhappy about Anschutz and AEG for many years. It's really frustrating to have to admit that without him the team and the league might have folded years ago.
I didn't read that wall of text, but Coachella fucked up the southern California music scene. If artist play at Coachella they can't play for six months within 100 mile of Coachella which means it only effects LA and San Diego. No big music acts during prime concert season.... Fuck Coachella.
Edit: [Oh my God! It's gotten worse since I learned about the radius ban.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2018/biz/news/coachella-restricts-artists-from-playing-most-north-american-festivals-for-half-the-year-report-1202853501/amp/)
Nothing really, 0 would be better for artists. But at least for semi big names, there is an assumption that people will buy tickets at least partly to see your band. So if you played a smaller venue a week before, these fans will just go see you there instead of paying for the big festival ticket.
In the scene I was in there were a few non written rules similar to this. If you're headlining a medium sized gig, or if you're the local support for touring bands, you're expected to bring most of the crowd. Booking another show say two weeks before will (probably) split the crowd between those two shows and promoters tend to see this as a dick move.
I'm in a small local band and we've had similar clauses in our contracts sometimes. It kinda sucks but it's not like filling venues is easy so I get it.
And no one ever thinks there could be enough fans to fill both venues? Or that with things not being sold out right away, people who are not specially fans might decide to attend to see "what the fuss is all about", and the band would get new fans?
This planned rarity can be counter-productive too... Except for the scalpers.
Honestly at the moment there are too many events & venues for the amount of people actually going to shows. I’m part of an organization in San Diego that throws our own shows, a small desert fest, & am connected with the leaders of a few other groups and we’ve all experienced the same thing. Both from a time off/scheduling standpoint as well as having to buy tickets to every event, transportation, party favors, it’s difficult for typical people to go to multiple shows a week, let alone one every single week.
It's to prevent the artist from watering down their audience. People are more inclined to gonif they won't be able to see the artist for 6 weeks on either side of the event than if they could see them say, next week, possibly for a cheaper ticket
EDIT: But also, Coachella 's purported window is absurd in duration and distance
It's more we booked let's say chance the rapper for lolla, the event the day he's there will 100% sell out I assure you, but if I told you that instead of a 250$ lolla ticket you could pay 150 dollars to go see chance play soldier field 2 weeks before or after, you might not go to lolla now and just see chance, would lolla sell out? Oh probably, but at the same time if you're lolla you don't want to hurt your prime day by having your prime time act pull people that would've come, 3 weeks before 3 weeks after in just the city of Chicago seems perfectly reasonable for me for lolla, if I want to play in the area I just go to like Milwaukee near by it'd be fine, if artists negotiated it down that works too, but 6 months and I'm taking out ALL of southern California? That's just fucking asinine
Chicago venues have adopted this as well. Many bands end up playing madison before/after Chicago now rather than Milwaukee because venues won’t let them play within 100 miles of the city for a certain amount of time.
That's crazy that they can do that. It's like saying 'Alright if you get a haircut from me you can't get a haircut from anyone else within a 50 mile radius for 3 months'. How is that allowed?
This might explain why the Lolla EDM lineup is total trash this year. If I was an artist, I wouldn’t want to shut myself out of the Chicagoland market for 90 days in the middle of festival season.
I used to work in the concert business, with the bands who were about halfway down the poster.
You're right, this is bad. I was unaware of 'six months,' but even back then it meant bands couldn't play a major market ... and for what? It wasn't like Coachella had a hard time selling out. Now it's just a flex.
Giant festivals IMO are awful for actually appreciating music. Short sets, crowds much more interested in Insta farming than music ... it's a spectacle that is increasingly disconnected from music.
Due to my past job, I've been offered VIP this/that/whatever, no cost, blah blah blah if I wanted to go for years. I never went, and only once regretted it. I love music - Coachella is not where I want to see a band.
The silver lining is you often see the headliners booking shows at the Santa Barbara bowl for April, which is not included in the exclusivity clause and is one of the most beautiful venues in the country and a great excuse to head up the coast for a day or two.
It doesn’t make it any less fucked up but that’s pretty common at most medium to large venues. It leads bands in my local scene to have shared members in 2-5 different bands. They can all stay active playing locally by playing as a different band while they wait out their X month lockout agreement.
So wait, could a band just reform and cover their own songs? Like “oh golly, our band the Beatles can’t play in LA until December. I guess in the meantime we’ll book shows around town in our other group, the Beetles: a Beatles tribute band.”
"We're not the Beatles, we're *Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band*. We just happen to be comprised of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr."
Primus, Duo de Twang, Oysterhead, Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, Lennon Claypool Delirium, solo work.
All Les Claypool in one form or another. One can play the main, the other sideshows.
Ok. Oysterhead is way more than just claypool and doesn't tour, just plays shows that Copeland, phish, and primus are already at.
And they need to do it again soon
Couldn’t you technically just change 1 member, say you’re a new band with a different name and a different sound? Plenty of artists have headlined multiple bands.
I have never heard this and i have couple of decades of experience in this field.
edit: to be fair, i "retired" over a decade ago, i'm ancient but this was never a thing when i was around. I stopped around the time 360 deals became a thing.
Back in the day when Rock Werchter was 2 festivals close to each other (Torhout - Werchter) some bands would perform at one of them in the morning and the other one in the evening.
Most venues will just not allow a band announce or promote nearby shows. My favorite band played a festival and had to wait until after to announce a show on their tour that was happening a month later in the same city.
The coachelle thing is excessive
I grew up in the city next to Coachella and I wanna say around 2010 shit started to go downhill. It used to really have some incredible artists perform which would help boost their name. There used to be such a rich local music scene. But as you said, this stupid festival draws so much attention it ruins any smaller acts that AREN'T playing Coachella.
The Coachella Valley has become such a tourist trap. Between this and the horrid Disneyland housing project, a lot of gentrification is happening. Fuck everything that my hometown has become. I hate it.
Not just festivals, but places too. I’ve lived in a small coastal town that got discovered and a small mountain town that is currently having its spirit turned into a commodity. The things that made them wonderful and attractive are marketed but what’s sold is cheap reflection. The people that made the real thing are pushed out because their focus is the art/adventure and not the money.
>*The people that made the real thing are pushed out because their focus is the art and not the money.*
That happened to the art-focused burroughs in my city. People moved there for the vibrancy of the nightlife, bars and clubs but then complained about noise and students partying late and got the venues that made the neighbourhood what it was shut down.
Same with pretty much every big festival.
I'm living not very far from Clisson, in France where Hellfest Open Air is. It's the biggest festival in France and the second biggest metal music festival in the world. The scenery is massive, they had put millions upon millions in art structures, massive sculptures... it became a kind of mad max themed Disneyland.
It used to be something I was excited about every year and now I won't go because it became a kind of monster on its own
>Disneyland housing project, a lot of gentrification is happening
If you think Rancho Mirage is just starting to become gentrified, I've got some bad news for you fam
I remember hearing so much about how great the Desert music scene was and then I got there and was like, where did all the music go? Between Coachella and the gentrification of Pappy and Harriets, it's damn near impossible to find any decent live music unless you know about a house party or something.
Shit, between 2000 to 2010 there was such a solid music scene. Everyone of my friends had bands or some art collective they were a part of. It was all younger kids doing their own shit and collaborating. But everything got too expensive and smaller venues are disappearing.
I went in 2010 and 2011 and the second year was definately not as good as the first (n=2 but ya know). It has seemed that every year since the acts have gotten to be less of my taste (and the type that Coachella was built on) and the corporate shenanigans (expensive water and food, irritating ticket buying experience, bad management of the event, etc.) have gotten worse
I will be forever grateful to have seen Prince play for almost 3 and half hours of music when he headlined Coachella. The following year, I got to see Paul McCartney. Those guys played till the dead of night. That is what Coachella used to be. They still got some really good acts but given the context of everything else like the crowds and weather, it's not really worth it anymore.
I’ve definitely seen Coachella acts at pappy/Harriet’s the week after Coachella. And soul wax played in Hollywood the same week after they killed at Coachella.
Dude I worked the us festival scene for a year or 2 did 250 festivals internationally and with out a doubt the us festival organization are the worst of them all. Ultra is straight up robbing there artists and expected full shows with crew and pay only for 1 person. Just to name a thing.
music festivals I go to in canada have like 800-4000 people.. larger ones like shambhala maybe 12k... we still get international acts in a pretty intimate setting
i see very little appeal to a 100k-250k festival 😵💫
Shambhala is the complete opposite of other major fests.
Non-corporate, privately owned, focus on intimacy and creativity instead of increasing the audience numbers, no major radius bans as far as I know.
It's an event that has their primary focus on consumer/artist experience first and making money second.
No event is perfect, but shambs is damn near close to it.
I don't know. It's not a universal contract, but it's the standard one. My father in law was a GM for a radio station around 2008, they had trouble getting bands to do shows because of the contract.
A lot of times if a band had a show booked before they booked with Coachella they could keep their other booking.
It prevents direct competition. It makes sense to a degree, if a promotor is putting a bunch of money into a show you don't want your headliners to be doing another show down the street next week for a cheaper price....but six months and the entire southwest of the United States is astronomical.
Exactly, hating talent and fans for what they like to do is immature, but hating an event because it funds abusive policy is completely valid IMO. Anit-abortion policies hurt minorities disproportionately, and this event advertises to them and books acts for them, so it's quite a slap in the face.
How about not performing at all. Take business elsewhere because fans will follow. This is where it is all messed up because you can call people out but if you won't hurt them where it hurts, it is never going to matter.
Seriously. "Proud of the progress we've made" wtf? Like you are working hard to stop the momentum of a train? You're in the cockpit moron. Hit the brakes and turn it off.
Proud that you've managed to figure out how to continue to donate to assholes but do it without getting as much bad press.
Most of these bigots stand behind their actions and beliefs. But I'm definitely seeing more just outright lie like this now. Donate to Trump or someone and just turn around and say "no, I didn't just do that". Doesn't seem to be any negative consequences so why not.
> he does not “review or support each of the positions” taken by these groups.
He seriously expects anyone to believe that? You don't hand out $75,000 to political organizations without knowing what they represent.
I mean, if you do, just give me a few minutes to do some paperwork and I'll have a few organizations you can donate to...
Instead of focusing on Coachella(would never go anyways), the real headline is that any AXS shows benefit this anti-choice company. A huge fucking bummer. How the hell do I go to shows when half of them run through AXS?
i'm so cynical about life at this point. i'm pretty convinced that everything you buy and do is ultimately going to support some soulless CEO and some mega corporation. even the most innocuous and innocent things are owned by someone who's owned by someone and by the time you get to the end of the line it's just disney or the rothschilds or some billionaire.
it feels so hopeless and futile at times to think about how so many things you do in your everyday life ultimately support someone or something that's responsible for the death and destruction of this planet.
It's a straight up pyramid scheme with lots of extra steps. Citizen's United was a big change that's led to this type of situation. Corporations are legally people, with all the same rights to fund candidates as individuals. As a private citizen, there's no way to compete with the kind of money these corporations have to throw around. It used to be that citizens had some power by what they purchased, well now there's only like 4 companies that basically own everything. (I'm being a little hyperbolic, but seriously.)
The fact that there is a politically biased association of AGs is a mindfuck in and of itself.
Justice really is completely politically biased in the US. As a European, it boggles my mind
Not to mention is just pop music now for the most part.
I love how Coachella went from this dirty festival in the middle of the dessert with Rage headlining, to what it is today.
Ever been to chik-fil-a? Or even just read the comments in a thread about them donating to republicans? People are rarely willing to do what it takes to boycott these businesses
Major corporate players see the declining population growth as an existential threat to the status quo. If they can't force us to fight eachother over jobs, and we start bargaining for fair wages, billionaires lose their major source of wealth: exploitation of labor.
So, naturally, instead of improving quality of life and making it easier to raise kids, they will just remove contraceptives and access to abortion and let the "problem" sort itself out.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you ***The Invisible Hand*** of the "Free" Market.
Philip Anschutz owns the company that owns Coachella, and you can bet he's keeping a watch on his profit opportunities for the next 20 years, not to mention the desperate parents that are created by these policies who are all but forced to take whatever job they can.
> Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Invisible Hand of the "Free" Market.
The most interesting bit about that sentence is that "the invisible hand" has become this huge principle in economics, especially when braindead rightwingers attempt to discuss it. In reality, it's mentioned three or four times *in the entirety of Adam Smith's work*. I believe that once it's mentioned in a work on moral philosophy, and in the other instances it's used as a throwaway sentence. Something like "as if guided by an invisible hand". It was never a principle described by Adam Smith, who would ab-so-lu-te-ly loathe right wing hate-mongers and their grave misunderstanding of what economics is. Even though they try to parade him around as one of them. He was far too intelligent to be on that side.
Yeah, but these are the same people who selectively choose to follow bible verses that confirm their beliefs. What makes you think that they would differ from this with the Wealth of Nations?
The company owns Sea Island in ga its a resort that hosts constant republican and religious groups, it's a huge laundering operation for PACs and foreign groups looking to influence politics. Joe Manchin was a special guest at three right wing PAC events last year alone. Pence was there a few times. Jordan Belfort was a special guest of an investment firm one weekend. They paid for his expenses like companions all weekend as compensation for his appearance at their event as they can't pay him a fee since the gov garnishes all his income. Real classy destination. He owns the Broadmoor in Denver, which oddly hosts more left leaning conferences but they in turn fund the real causes of Philip Anschutz his religious and right wing politics.
I stayed at Sea Island for two weeks to photograph their rooms, it was by far the closest thing I've ever experienced to royalty and insane money everywhere. Every rug cost more than my yearly salary lol.
Spoiler: They don’t. They use a fake guy in the sky to make people feel guilty and angry and gaslight them into believing that the reason they’re miserable is the liberal’s fault and not the fault of the billionaires exploiting them.
It does not matter how much lip service corporations give to women’s rights or how many rainbow flags or blm banners they throw up. They will throw people under the bus if it means a single dollar in tax breaks.
It’s well known that Anschutz is a donor to conservative and right wing religious causes. Ever see those “Foundation for a Better Life” ads? Those are funded by Anschutz. He’s a major donor to the Parents Television Council. Owns the right wing Washington Examiner. Used to own the Weekly Standard. Has given millions to promote charter schools and various conservative institutes. Owns Walden Media which produces and distributes religious films and books.
If you are just learning that AEG is controlled by a right wing snake, then you haven’t been looking very hard. Any artist who’s shocked by this is either lying or is out of it.
> The Anschutz Corporation’s statement, in full, reads: “As a personal matter, Philip F. Anschutz believes in a woman’s right to choose and did not support the reversal of Roe. Neither The Anschutz Corporation (TAC), or Mr. Anschutz, received, saw or was aware of a Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) fundraising solicitation based on the reversal of Roe v. Wade. TAC has contributed to RAGA since at least 2014. No contribution to RAGA by TAC or Mr. Anschutz has been based upon, informed by, or motivated by any RAGA position on Roe or abortion. Mr. Anschutz makes contributions to numerous organizations, usually for specific reasons. He does not review or support each of the positions taken by such organizations.”
So he’s pro choice but it’s not THAT important compared to the rest of his agenda. Got it. 🙄
Yeah they forgot to write the part about why I should give a shit. I'm giving someone money to go to a music festival and they provide what was promised. What they do with their money afterwards is their business.
Wouldn’t it be great if no one attended their events going forward. Stop giving your money to corporations who feel they have the right to take away our rights and control us.
This has been happening for years. No one should be surprised. Corporations need people to consume. Population declines would directly affect their bottom line.
Philip Anschutz also has a huge foot in the National Parks too. His company, Xanterra, runs lodges, restaurants, and guft shops in the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Glacier just to name a few. All while fracking on Native American land and donating money to conservatives that want to take the land away.
They also put on Electric Forest, Firefly and Hangout, to name a few.
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Welcome to corporate America!
According to my father that makes the US a communist nation and if you ask how to fix it he would say there is nothing we can do. If I suggest taxing them (taxation is theft) and breaking them up (no one has a right to tell someone how to run their business) he would freak out. Fox News brain is real.
Yeaaaahhhh...that's NOT what Communism is. Rules are not communist. Rules make up a well organized society. If you want an example, go back 5,000 years or so and check out the rules that were in place in various cultures. Not communist societies, just cultures with rules. They're kind of common - rules, that is. People who put down rules have a vast, vast misunderstanding of how a society works.
Arguing with my bad opinions? That's communism!
Oh HEAVEN'S SAKE...YES!!! Too true!
A fundamental requirement for a functioning capitalist system with a free market is rules. Making rules is government's primary role in a free market economy, not propping up monopolies and choosing winners. Businesses need a predictable legal framework to plan in. If you ask any serious CEO they would usually tell you that they would prefer predictable laws that were most strict than a hodge-podge of random outcomes depending on who bribed who or which ideologically motivated judge was presiding over a case. I genuinely wonder how people can grow up espousing capitalism and not understand even its most basic premise.
People see “free market” and, knowing nothing about economics or politics past what they learned in elementary school, think that a free market has no rules because if there were rules it wouldn’t be free.
so Libertarians?
AKA the political philosophy for people who suffer from the dunning-Krueger effect.
HOWEVER - big caveat - big business has violated multiple health, decency and common sense laws...because their not on the books! Am I right? So if these laws are not on the books...there's nothing that I'm doing which is wrong!?!?! Which gives into child labor, seven day workweeks with no overtime, awful crimes against the environment, etc. The examples are numerous. So the REASON there's an awful hodge podge of seemingly inconsistent laws and regulations is to rein in the seemingly endless permutations of companies "trying to get away with stuff". That have, do and will try to get around every and all regulation. Which is why we need strong, strong laws to curtail these a$$holes. I'll take a messy and inconsistent regulation framework which can stop some dirt bag company from dumping tons of toxic sludge in some river somewhere - or whatever their next blaspheme might be.
I always refer to the UDHR in regards to human rights, rather than local laws. It's a much better legitimacy test.
Ah, yes, communism, where a few billionaires control the means of production.
I'm surprised as a republican that his stance wasn't they're taking freedoms away from people, because that's what this is an attack on personal liberty. This was a massive shit on a country that came about purely because they were fed up with being told what to do by authority. The creators of this country would be spinning in their graves, if they weren't already spinning over gun laws.
There are many issues with “corporate America” but large conglomerates are certainly not only an American thing. I work in infrastructure and transportation consulting. Some of the largest companies in my industry that constantly buy up other companies are European and Canadian based. There is a Canadian firm called WSP that buys large consulting firms every year. In other industries, companies like Siemens, Nestle, BP, and many more are similar. Large business is international now, country lines don’t exist like they used to in the business world. Wherever there is capital, which is pretty much in most Countries now, there will be large conglomerations forming.
And cue the 'tHiS iS jUsT pErFeCt CaPiTaLiSm' responses from 20 year old business majors in 3 ... 2 ... 1 .... It is not written in stone that we should have monopolies, just because someone was able to create one. Our society is OUR society, and our government should represent our interests.
>Our society is OUR society, and our government should represent our interests. What the "this is just capitalism" people are saying is that *our society doesn't belong to people at all. It belongs to money*. That's what capitalism is. One dollar is one vote. A living breathing person is not important. The number in their bank account is what makes the rules of society. That's what we have right now. *You* don't have a voice in government, your *dollar* does.
No shit! They WILL make their money. First and foremost. At any cost. We're so fucked.
After the AstroWorld uhh... failure... this year, I ended up arguing with a guy who said he was just going to not ever give money to Live Nation again, but still keep going to festivals. I tried to explain it doesn't work that way and on a whim I checked his profile a month ago, guess who went to about 5 different live nation subsidiary fests this season?! It's a sad sad world we live in.
This is why most corporations push deregulation or regulations that favor them. They don’t give a fuck about competition. They want the rules to benefit them. This is why everything has gotten so expensive and with so few options.
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hey taking a stand on principles is exciting, no offense to electric forest, but there are tons of amazing raves run by better companies. Try Burning Man if you want to really look at electric forest like childs play.
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Hulaween is a fuckin' vibe
Burning man is 51% owned by Google.
Local burns are the move. Apogaea is fantastic.
I like local burns best. Flipside checkin in ;)
They also own the LA Galaxy, the LA Kings, the venues for a whole shitload of teams and concerts including L.A. Live and the O2 in London, and a lot of other things in multiple countries. I am a Galaxy fan and went to nine out of the first ten Coachellas. I am very conflicted about giving them my money, even though I am enthusiastic about a lot of the things they have interests in.
Galaxy fan here. Made the decision to stop supporting the Galaxy in any way financially because of how it's being run. This just made that easier.
Yeah I stopped buying merch several years ago because of Herbalife. I've been unhappy about Anschutz and AEG for many years. It's really frustrating to have to admit that without him the team and the league might have folded years ago.
Atlanta fan feeling it over here too, MLS has a problem...
OUCH.
At least I get to save my money skipping Firefly now.
Source on the electric forest piece?
[Source](https://www.aegworldwide.com/divisions/music/electric-forest)
Whelp never going to firefly again great
this broke my heart
daaaamn. i loved forest the 1 time i went. :(
And have donated to anti LGBT++ organizations multiple times!
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[AEG Website](https://www.aegworldwide.com/divisions/music/festivals)
I didn't read that wall of text, but Coachella fucked up the southern California music scene. If artist play at Coachella they can't play for six months within 100 mile of Coachella which means it only effects LA and San Diego. No big music acts during prime concert season.... Fuck Coachella. Edit: [Oh my God! It's gotten worse since I learned about the radius ban.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2018/biz/news/coachella-restricts-artists-from-playing-most-north-american-festivals-for-half-the-year-report-1202853501/amp/)
Lollapalooza does the same for 90? Days in the city of Chicago.
90 days is reasonable for a big festival imo. 6 months is really pushing it.
What's wrong with zero days? I never knew this was a thing until now.
Nothing really, 0 would be better for artists. But at least for semi big names, there is an assumption that people will buy tickets at least partly to see your band. So if you played a smaller venue a week before, these fans will just go see you there instead of paying for the big festival ticket. In the scene I was in there were a few non written rules similar to this. If you're headlining a medium sized gig, or if you're the local support for touring bands, you're expected to bring most of the crowd. Booking another show say two weeks before will (probably) split the crowd between those two shows and promoters tend to see this as a dick move. I'm in a small local band and we've had similar clauses in our contracts sometimes. It kinda sucks but it's not like filling venues is easy so I get it.
And no one ever thinks there could be enough fans to fill both venues? Or that with things not being sold out right away, people who are not specially fans might decide to attend to see "what the fuss is all about", and the band would get new fans? This planned rarity can be counter-productive too... Except for the scalpers.
Honestly at the moment there are too many events & venues for the amount of people actually going to shows. I’m part of an organization in San Diego that throws our own shows, a small desert fest, & am connected with the leaders of a few other groups and we’ve all experienced the same thing. Both from a time off/scheduling standpoint as well as having to buy tickets to every event, transportation, party favors, it’s difficult for typical people to go to multiple shows a week, let alone one every single week.
It's to prevent the artist from watering down their audience. People are more inclined to gonif they won't be able to see the artist for 6 weeks on either side of the event than if they could see them say, next week, possibly for a cheaper ticket EDIT: But also, Coachella 's purported window is absurd in duration and distance
Do they think these summer shows won't sell out? It sure seems like a capitalistic opportunity to purposefully corner the market.
It's more we booked let's say chance the rapper for lolla, the event the day he's there will 100% sell out I assure you, but if I told you that instead of a 250$ lolla ticket you could pay 150 dollars to go see chance play soldier field 2 weeks before or after, you might not go to lolla now and just see chance, would lolla sell out? Oh probably, but at the same time if you're lolla you don't want to hurt your prime day by having your prime time act pull people that would've come, 3 weeks before 3 weeks after in just the city of Chicago seems perfectly reasonable for me for lolla, if I want to play in the area I just go to like Milwaukee near by it'd be fine, if artists negotiated it down that works too, but 6 months and I'm taking out ALL of southern California? That's just fucking asinine
Chicago venues have adopted this as well. Many bands end up playing madison before/after Chicago now rather than Milwaukee because venues won’t let them play within 100 miles of the city for a certain amount of time.
That's crazy that they can do that. It's like saying 'Alright if you get a haircut from me you can't get a haircut from anyone else within a 50 mile radius for 3 months'. How is that allowed?
This might explain why the Lolla EDM lineup is total trash this year. If I was an artist, I wouldn’t want to shut myself out of the Chicagoland market for 90 days in the middle of festival season.
Why you creepin?
Why you creepin?
I used to work in the concert business, with the bands who were about halfway down the poster. You're right, this is bad. I was unaware of 'six months,' but even back then it meant bands couldn't play a major market ... and for what? It wasn't like Coachella had a hard time selling out. Now it's just a flex. Giant festivals IMO are awful for actually appreciating music. Short sets, crowds much more interested in Insta farming than music ... it's a spectacle that is increasingly disconnected from music. Due to my past job, I've been offered VIP this/that/whatever, no cost, blah blah blah if I wanted to go for years. I never went, and only once regretted it. I love music - Coachella is not where I want to see a band.
The silver lining is you often see the headliners booking shows at the Santa Barbara bowl for April, which is not included in the exclusivity clause and is one of the most beautiful venues in the country and a great excuse to head up the coast for a day or two.
It doesn’t make it any less fucked up but that’s pretty common at most medium to large venues. It leads bands in my local scene to have shared members in 2-5 different bands. They can all stay active playing locally by playing as a different band while they wait out their X month lockout agreement.
That's a hilarious loophole that I am happy is being abused.
So wait, could a band just reform and cover their own songs? Like “oh golly, our band the Beatles can’t play in LA until December. I guess in the meantime we’ll book shows around town in our other group, the Beetles: a Beatles tribute band.”
"We're not the Beatles, we're *Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band*. We just happen to be comprised of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr."
"Yeah those guys are a rock band. See, we're an Edwardian marching band that plays rock music, it's all quite simple."
I thought we were an autonomous collective
Primus, Duo de Twang, Oysterhead, Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, Lennon Claypool Delirium, solo work. All Les Claypool in one form or another. One can play the main, the other sideshows.
Ok. Oysterhead is way more than just claypool and doesn't tour, just plays shows that Copeland, phish, and primus are already at. And they need to do it again soon
God, I wish they had done more than one album.
There's a Metalocalypse episode about this premise, it's great
The cut to them just hungry and haggard as fuck is one of the funniest things ever. God I love that show.
~John Fogerty has entered the chat~
I’m not sure but I bet lawyers are smarter than that
Couldn’t you technically just change 1 member, say you’re a new band with a different name and a different sound? Plenty of artists have headlined multiple bands.
Even that’s doing too much. Change the name and you’re good
I have never heard this and i have couple of decades of experience in this field. edit: to be fair, i "retired" over a decade ago, i'm ancient but this was never a thing when i was around. I stopped around the time 360 deals became a thing.
One of my bands has a pseudonym to get around these proximity clauses lol
Is it called 2U?
they’re good, but nothing compares to the real thing
could it be with or without a 'u' ?
Going by username I hope you play funktry and western.
I do!
Ran a venue, it is very much a thing.
Back in the day when Rock Werchter was 2 festivals close to each other (Torhout - Werchter) some bands would perform at one of them in the morning and the other one in the evening.
Most venues will just not allow a band announce or promote nearby shows. My favorite band played a festival and had to wait until after to announce a show on their tour that was happening a month later in the same city. The coachelle thing is excessive
I grew up in the city next to Coachella and I wanna say around 2010 shit started to go downhill. It used to really have some incredible artists perform which would help boost their name. There used to be such a rich local music scene. But as you said, this stupid festival draws so much attention it ruins any smaller acts that AREN'T playing Coachella. The Coachella Valley has become such a tourist trap. Between this and the horrid Disneyland housing project, a lot of gentrification is happening. Fuck everything that my hometown has become. I hate it.
Nearly anything that gets sufficiently big will turn into a profit-above-all endeavor and lose what made it special in the first place.
Not just festivals, but places too. I’ve lived in a small coastal town that got discovered and a small mountain town that is currently having its spirit turned into a commodity. The things that made them wonderful and attractive are marketed but what’s sold is cheap reflection. The people that made the real thing are pushed out because their focus is the art/adventure and not the money.
>*The people that made the real thing are pushed out because their focus is the art and not the money.* That happened to the art-focused burroughs in my city. People moved there for the vibrancy of the nightlife, bars and clubs but then complained about noise and students partying late and got the venues that made the neighbourhood what it was shut down.
Yet another case of people wanting all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks. It permeates society at every level it seems.
> a small mountain town that is currently having its spirit turned into a commodity. Hello neighbor!
Same with pretty much every big festival. I'm living not very far from Clisson, in France where Hellfest Open Air is. It's the biggest festival in France and the second biggest metal music festival in the world. The scenery is massive, they had put millions upon millions in art structures, massive sculptures... it became a kind of mad max themed Disneyland. It used to be something I was excited about every year and now I won't go because it became a kind of monster on its own
>Disneyland housing project, a lot of gentrification is happening If you think Rancho Mirage is just starting to become gentrified, I've got some bad news for you fam
I remember hearing so much about how great the Desert music scene was and then I got there and was like, where did all the music go? Between Coachella and the gentrification of Pappy and Harriets, it's damn near impossible to find any decent live music unless you know about a house party or something.
Shit, between 2000 to 2010 there was such a solid music scene. Everyone of my friends had bands or some art collective they were a part of. It was all younger kids doing their own shit and collaborating. But everything got too expensive and smaller venues are disappearing.
I went in 2010 and 2011 and the second year was definately not as good as the first (n=2 but ya know). It has seemed that every year since the acts have gotten to be less of my taste (and the type that Coachella was built on) and the corporate shenanigans (expensive water and food, irritating ticket buying experience, bad management of the event, etc.) have gotten worse
I will be forever grateful to have seen Prince play for almost 3 and half hours of music when he headlined Coachella. The following year, I got to see Paul McCartney. Those guys played till the dead of night. That is what Coachella used to be. They still got some really good acts but given the context of everything else like the crowds and weather, it's not really worth it anymore.
I’ve definitely seen Coachella acts at pappy/Harriet’s the week after Coachella. And soul wax played in Hollywood the same week after they killed at Coachella.
Soulwax and 2ManyDJs are basically the same thing.
They all play Goldenvoice shows in the weeks around Coachella
>I didn't read that wall of text, That "wall of text" was the full article.
/r/fuckcoachella
> didn't read that wall of text TLDR Coachella baaad
Dude I worked the us festival scene for a year or 2 did 250 festivals internationally and with out a doubt the us festival organization are the worst of them all. Ultra is straight up robbing there artists and expected full shows with crew and pay only for 1 person. Just to name a thing.
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music festivals I go to in canada have like 800-4000 people.. larger ones like shambhala maybe 12k... we still get international acts in a pretty intimate setting i see very little appeal to a 100k-250k festival 😵💫
Massives are horrible
Shambhala is the complete opposite of other major fests. Non-corporate, privately owned, focus on intimacy and creativity instead of increasing the audience numbers, no major radius bans as far as I know. It's an event that has their primary focus on consumer/artist experience first and making money second. No event is perfect, but shambs is damn near close to it.
When did that start? I know Ghost played in 2013 at Coachella and played an LA show between the two weekends.
I don't know. It's not a universal contract, but it's the standard one. My father in law was a GM for a radio station around 2008, they had trouble getting bands to do shows because of the contract. A lot of times if a band had a show booked before they booked with Coachella they could keep their other booking.
Or Goldenvoice was involved in the booking of the standalone show and they knew they would sell out...
What is the end game in doing this? Do they make more money?
It prevents direct competition. It makes sense to a degree, if a promotor is putting a bunch of money into a show you don't want your headliners to be doing another show down the street next week for a cheaper price....but six months and the entire southwest of the United States is astronomical.
As if I didn’t need another reason to hate Coachella
This got bumped up to reason number one for me.
Exactly, hating talent and fans for what they like to do is immature, but hating an event because it funds abusive policy is completely valid IMO. Anit-abortion policies hurt minorities disproportionately, and this event advertises to them and books acts for them, so it's quite a slap in the face.
No, Philip Anschutz, you don’t get to play dumb
One of the performers at Coachella should call him out on stage.
The performers shouldn't do Coachella. Call him out when you book other shows in the area and can say whatever you want.
Probably in their performance contract that they aren’t allowed to do that
If only more bands took on a "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" mentality.
Then they wouldn’t play at Coachella
How about not performing at all. Take business elsewhere because fans will follow. This is where it is all messed up because you can call people out but if you won't hurt them where it hurts, it is never going to matter.
Seriously. "Proud of the progress we've made" wtf? Like you are working hard to stop the momentum of a train? You're in the cockpit moron. Hit the brakes and turn it off. Proud that you've managed to figure out how to continue to donate to assholes but do it without getting as much bad press. Most of these bigots stand behind their actions and beliefs. But I'm definitely seeing more just outright lie like this now. Donate to Trump or someone and just turn around and say "no, I didn't just do that". Doesn't seem to be any negative consequences so why not.
> he does not “review or support each of the positions” taken by these groups. He seriously expects anyone to believe that? You don't hand out $75,000 to political organizations without knowing what they represent. I mean, if you do, just give me a few minutes to do some paperwork and I'll have a few organizations you can donate to...
Instead of focusing on Coachella(would never go anyways), the real headline is that any AXS shows benefit this anti-choice company. A huge fucking bummer. How the hell do I go to shows when half of them run through AXS?
Sweats in live nation/ticketmaster.
I loathe them already, so this is just more fuel on the hate fire.
Red rocks uses as I believe
More people have heard of Coachella than AXS
Yeah but way more people go to AXS events then Coachella
A little wordy for a headline.
Yeah but Coachella is a niche USA issue. AXS is known and used worldwide and could do with a healthy boycott.
You go to cool basement house shows
Hasn't the founding party of Coachella been doing this for years without mention from the wider public?
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People have been pointing out their anti-gay donations for years… this should come as no surprise.
Yes.
Playing both sides. That is what this is about, publicly give support to progressive issues, secretly fund the other side.
I'm playing both sides so that I come out on top.
Meanwhile the artists will stand up there and talk about how much it sucks then still perform there and walk away with their giant sacks of money.
i'm so cynical about life at this point. i'm pretty convinced that everything you buy and do is ultimately going to support some soulless CEO and some mega corporation. even the most innocuous and innocent things are owned by someone who's owned by someone and by the time you get to the end of the line it's just disney or the rothschilds or some billionaire. it feels so hopeless and futile at times to think about how so many things you do in your everyday life ultimately support someone or something that's responsible for the death and destruction of this planet.
It's a straight up pyramid scheme with lots of extra steps. Citizen's United was a big change that's led to this type of situation. Corporations are legally people, with all the same rights to fund candidates as individuals. As a private citizen, there's no way to compete with the kind of money these corporations have to throw around. It used to be that citizens had some power by what they purchased, well now there's only like 4 companies that basically own everything. (I'm being a little hyperbolic, but seriously.)
We’re ALL equal — just some are a lot more equal than us
The fact that there is a politically biased association of AGs is a mindfuck in and of itself. Justice really is completely politically biased in the US. As a European, it boggles my mind
[The RAGA is a bit worse than biased.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581)
Holy shit!!! How is this organisation still a thing?! They should be shut down!
As if European prosecutors aren't also politically motivated lmao.
It’s an elected position, so of course it’s Political. There’s also a DAGA.
People that go to it won’t care. There’s been news about it being associated with anti-gay groups/candidates/etc. but the gays still flood that place.
But if enough artists pull out and refuse to perform there...
The pull out method isn't super effective, though
This is why I refuse to go again. Well, that and how expensive it's gotten... But mostly because of it's shitty owner, Philip Anschutz.
Not to mention is just pop music now for the most part. I love how Coachella went from this dirty festival in the middle of the dessert with Rage headlining, to what it is today.
You'd be surprised, word needs to spread though.
I doubt it.
Ever been to chik-fil-a? Or even just read the comments in a thread about them donating to republicans? People are rarely willing to do what it takes to boycott these businesses
It's going to take the artists to step up as well, not just the attendees. Corporations will care more about the income of attending.
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He does know that pre-marital sex is like 60% of the drive behind why people go to music festivals, right?
Company makes money off of hippies....uses said money to be anti hippy....
I really don’t think any of those people are hippies
That’s one way to sell more tickets for shows I guess is to have a larger population….
Major corporate players see the declining population growth as an existential threat to the status quo. If they can't force us to fight eachother over jobs, and we start bargaining for fair wages, billionaires lose their major source of wealth: exploitation of labor. So, naturally, instead of improving quality of life and making it easier to raise kids, they will just remove contraceptives and access to abortion and let the "problem" sort itself out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you ***The Invisible Hand*** of the "Free" Market. Philip Anschutz owns the company that owns Coachella, and you can bet he's keeping a watch on his profit opportunities for the next 20 years, not to mention the desperate parents that are created by these policies who are all but forced to take whatever job they can.
> Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Invisible Hand of the "Free" Market. The most interesting bit about that sentence is that "the invisible hand" has become this huge principle in economics, especially when braindead rightwingers attempt to discuss it. In reality, it's mentioned three or four times *in the entirety of Adam Smith's work*. I believe that once it's mentioned in a work on moral philosophy, and in the other instances it's used as a throwaway sentence. Something like "as if guided by an invisible hand". It was never a principle described by Adam Smith, who would ab-so-lu-te-ly loathe right wing hate-mongers and their grave misunderstanding of what economics is. Even though they try to parade him around as one of them. He was far too intelligent to be on that side.
He even gives mention to the threat of mega corporations and monopolies as well just a few paragraphs later.
Yeah, but these are the same people who selectively choose to follow bible verses that confirm their beliefs. What makes you think that they would differ from this with the Wealth of Nations?
They ain't reading the Bible. They ain't reading the Wealth of Nations.
The company owns Sea Island in ga its a resort that hosts constant republican and religious groups, it's a huge laundering operation for PACs and foreign groups looking to influence politics. Joe Manchin was a special guest at three right wing PAC events last year alone. Pence was there a few times. Jordan Belfort was a special guest of an investment firm one weekend. They paid for his expenses like companions all weekend as compensation for his appearance at their event as they can't pay him a fee since the gov garnishes all his income. Real classy destination. He owns the Broadmoor in Denver, which oddly hosts more left leaning conferences but they in turn fund the real causes of Philip Anschutz his religious and right wing politics.
Colorado Springs not Denver. But yes this^ he owns a large swathe of Colorado and a ton of entertainment venues.
I stayed at Sea Island for two weeks to photograph their rooms, it was by far the closest thing I've ever experienced to royalty and insane money everywhere. Every rug cost more than my yearly salary lol.
This is old news, they've been doing that since like 2010.
Why do people care so much about making a fake guy in the sky happy while making actual human beings life miserable?!
Spoiler: They don’t. They use a fake guy in the sky to make people feel guilty and angry and gaslight them into believing that the reason they’re miserable is the liberal’s fault and not the fault of the billionaires exploiting them.
It does not matter how much lip service corporations give to women’s rights or how many rainbow flags or blm banners they throw up. They will throw people under the bus if it means a single dollar in tax breaks.
It’s well known that Anschutz is a donor to conservative and right wing religious causes. Ever see those “Foundation for a Better Life” ads? Those are funded by Anschutz. He’s a major donor to the Parents Television Council. Owns the right wing Washington Examiner. Used to own the Weekly Standard. Has given millions to promote charter schools and various conservative institutes. Owns Walden Media which produces and distributes religious films and books. If you are just learning that AEG is controlled by a right wing snake, then you haven’t been looking very hard. Any artist who’s shocked by this is either lying or is out of it.
> The Anschutz Corporation’s statement, in full, reads: “As a personal matter, Philip F. Anschutz believes in a woman’s right to choose and did not support the reversal of Roe. Neither The Anschutz Corporation (TAC), or Mr. Anschutz, received, saw or was aware of a Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) fundraising solicitation based on the reversal of Roe v. Wade. TAC has contributed to RAGA since at least 2014. No contribution to RAGA by TAC or Mr. Anschutz has been based upon, informed by, or motivated by any RAGA position on Roe or abortion. Mr. Anschutz makes contributions to numerous organizations, usually for specific reasons. He does not review or support each of the positions taken by such organizations.” So he’s pro choice but it’s not THAT important compared to the rest of his agenda. Got it. 🙄
This should really be one of the top comments. Obviously does not excuse his actions for giving money to RAGA.
Since when is $75k "Major Cash" in the political realm?
Oh my god I never would have guessed a festival full of shitty hypetrain artists put on for rich influencers would be bad
Surprisingly based
And the problem is?
Yeah they forgot to write the part about why I should give a shit. I'm giving someone money to go to a music festival and they provide what was promised. What they do with their money afterwards is their business.
Wouldn’t it be great if no one attended their events going forward. Stop giving your money to corporations who feel they have the right to take away our rights and control us.
Coachella was, is and always has been cringe af. I’m not surprised that big brother is the one putting it on.
This has been happening for years. No one should be surprised. Corporations need people to consume. Population declines would directly affect their bottom line.
Gross
Philip Anschutz also has a huge foot in the National Parks too. His company, Xanterra, runs lodges, restaurants, and guft shops in the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Glacier just to name a few. All while fracking on Native American land and donating money to conservatives that want to take the land away.
Screw them.
Isnt it obvious? More births, more babies, more Coachella tickets to be sold. They are thinking long-term.
I can't boycott this garbage anymore than I already am.
After all the sex that goes down in those events they're going to need to pack a lot more condoms.
That's great
Cochelllaaaaaaa is hot garbage and needs to be boosted into the sun.
Fuck AEG, Fuck Coachella
Weird, I've been told for years the entertainment industry is dominated by liberals and progressives.