secrets oF the show

Have you ever wondered about what goes on behind the scenes of popular music festivals? If so, you have come to the right place! Most of the content here follows expert advice and insights into the Music industry, perfect for up and coming artists who need guidance, or for anybody else interested in music!

All of the advice and information here was gathered from three industry professionals; Jeff Pinkus, a bass and banjo player who was a member of the Butthole Surfers from 1984 to 1996, Scott Wonski, a concert promoter who has worked thousands of shows for 15+ years, and Luann Williams, who works in business development, Sponsorships, Event Planning, and Production.

PAGE 32 worked at South by Southwest, a popular music festival held in Austin; Texas Each professional said that they got into the music industry very gradually. Scott Wonski, for example, started his career off at a young age:

Need to know facts and opinions from the Pros.

Luann also

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According to Wonski, the way to progress through the system is to look for opportunities and take promotions, pay raises, and even slight improvements can benefit in the long run. In Wonski’s case he made friends with a box office manager who suggested that he apply for her position once she left:

“She said “Look, you know the ticketing system, you know how this all works, you’d be great for it. I know you’re still going to school, there’s long hours, and a lot of nights and weekends. But I think it just definitely gets your foot in the door.” “And it did.” Once you are in a good position, you can sort of climb up the chain of command. Wonski had 6+ jobs before landing at the spot he is now, so don’t give up, always look for that next foothold. You may also be promoted in other ways, according to Wonski: “When I started, we were owned by Universal Studios. And they have a division called universal concerts, they own seven amphitheaters across the country. And then that was bought by House of Blues, and then the House of Blues was bought by Live Nation, which is now the largest music promoter in the world.”

When it comes to jobs and how difficult they are, Luann believes that the toughest jobs have to do with planning and production. “At South by Southwest in particular, there are usually 100 or more venues, and they have to handle all the gear and all the support for those venues, load in and load out everything, so it takes a huge team.”

All of these other jobs are important, but artists play a huge role in music festivals, they are probably the first thing you think of when you think about roles in Music festivals. I wanted to interview an artist who had been to a music festival or on tour, which I originally thought would be tough but I was able to snag an interview with Jeff Pinkus of the Butthole Surfers. Pinkus lives for touring. He loves it so much that he actually left the Butthole surfers so that he could continue to perform music live.

According to him, “They wanted to perform less and tour less, make more projects. I love performing for live audiences, which they understood, so I left without any real trouble or bad blood.” Pinkus also details how traveling across countries and continents feels as an artist. “When I went to New Zealand all the locals wanted to show me around, people will try to impress you, try to get you to stay longer.”

Pinkus has also performed at more notable shows. According to him the largest show he ever played at was Reading in England. For Pinkus, the larger the show the easier it is to perform at. “Big shows like Reading are much easier when you got 60,000 people there. It’s just like a big ocean of heads.” He adds: “Smaller shows on the other hand, those can be tougher. If you are performing for a small crowd and you can see your family or friends for example, those are faces that you can assign names, personalities, and whole lives to. The fact that these are people you know makes things a lot more intense.” Everybody who was interviewed had a positive outlook on the future of music. Lonski in particular was hopeful that newcomers would learn from the veterans in the industry and avoid bad record deals and managers. Pinkus, however says:

So if you want to get into larger shows and perform at bigger venues, find a good manager, eg. somebody who helps the entire team stay connected and on the same page, gives advice, and, of course, gets you the best possible deals.

Artists who want to go to major music festivals have a couple of options for getting into shows, but with some requirements. According to Luann Williamson who worked at South by Southwest for 12 years: “There’s a huge international presence. When I was working there, the largest number of bands from outside the US came from Canada in the UK, oftentimes as many as 100 from each country. The government supports the arts, and they pay to bring delegations of people and artists over to the United States to promote their music.”

She also had some advice for local artists who are not being sent by their government. “I can really only speak for the way South by Southwest did it when I was there. I’m pretty sure other conferences do it sort of similarly. First, with South by Southwest, artists apply, and then they have to provide samples of music, songs, albums, mixtapes, et cetera.” PAGE 34 In Between the Staf

“Then, they have to provide information about who their manager is, who the booking agent is, their social media accounts, bio, of course, and photos and any videos, any sort of supporting materials just to show that they are serious about having a career and not just coming to the event to just have fun. So all the things around kind of running a business. a website, social media accounts, an email list or booking agent, manager or publisher, and Performing Rights agencies. Really anybody who has the rights to their music, like ASCAP or BMI. So the more serious that they are about their career, the more likely they are to get accepted.”

Jeff Pinkus and the butthole surfers performed at the first ever Lollapalooza. Pinkus recounts: “We came out right after Janes addiction. The lead singer of the band, Gibby Haynes had brought a giant beach ball and a shotgun which was loaded up with blanks. He threw the beach ball up into the air and shot right by it, which popped it. Blanks can’t cause any real harm from a distance, and he started firing into the air above the crowd. They scattered, they were screaming and running until they realized that the shotgun was firing blanks and things sorta settled down. After we finished our set, Ice-T and his group came out they were performing and the crowd was lovin’ it. Ice-T actually had two 9mm [Handguns] also filled with blanks, he was firing them at the crowd, but they weren’t as scared because we already fired at them, and they caught on pretty quickly. To quote Ice-T, “They stole my thunder!””

The future of music seems to be bright. With all sorts of new artists and easier methods to produce music it seems like stars are appearing overnight. But is the quality there? Scott Wonski personally believes that the quality of concerts has changed, for the worse and better. He mentions NASA Blues and how they originally started a website where you could livestream news. they were growing so fast and it was way too ahead of its time. So if that would have happened in the landscape now, I think it would have been a great success. So they put a ton of money into technology and research to pull that off. And it just fell flat.” Scott Wonski thinks these sorts of new innovations will help concerts keep up with the digital age and any challenges such as Covid-19 that may arise: during quarantine, all those bands were doing virtual shows, and charging ticket prices, you know, ticket admission fees, pay $10, to watch this band. I myself paid for a couple of those just because I was so bored and hungry for content and wanted to see some new stuff. They started doing these parking lot concerts for a while, or you know, just in the drive in movie theaters, where you pull up in your car and then you just sit on the hood of your car, you couldn’t leave your little quarantine spot.

Concerts, called “hiv.com”. The goal was to allow people across the country or world to experiance these concerts on the internet. Wonski adds to this by saying “The technology wasn’t there, there were a lot of buffer ing issues, and it was in the