Turn down the music

Last weekend about 319.000 music fans had a great weekend at Rock Werchter. According to people from the music industry it's the best festival in the world.

A couple of years ago the man behind it, Herman Schueremans ‘sold’ his festival to Live Nation. As a previous subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications under the Clear Channel Entertainment name, Live Nation was party to some highly visible controversies. It didn’t take long before people started to perceive the organization as a gigantic money craving monster, instead of an enthusiastic team that brings the world’s biggest bands to Belgium.

For example some say the tickets are to expensive although 165€ to see 60 class bands isn’t really thàt much. Every year the same stories appear in the press. And every year Herman Schueremans gets angry at media and Belgians that envy his success. A strategy that has lead to negative coverage a few years in a row.

Recently an 18-year old Javache started a little project on twitter that would enable people to receive festivalnews via twitter during the concerts. He started a channel and got quite some attention in the Belgian blogosphere. Unfortunately Live Nation wasn’t happy with his initiative and called him to say they would start a lawsuit unless he didn’t stop. When the word got out, Belgian blogosphere showed no mercy towards Live Nation. If they had stimulated the small fire Javache had started they would have had a great and free campaign. Their reaction backfired and painfully reinforced the negative image.

One could argue that isn’t really a problem because the festival is sold-out every year. In the long run I think it could become a problem, there are some fat years and some lean years. An award of the music industry is nice, but it’s the audience that pays their fees. Turn down the music and listen to them from time to time.