Information is Beautiful.

But it’s not always right.

The problem with the Internet is anybody can post information and if it’s outrageous enough it’ll be forwarded ad infinitum without fact-checking, without scrutiny, and a plethora of people will believe it. Used to be information was funneled through responsible media and after being scrubbed of falsehood it was disseminated to the public. Today even the mainstream is untrustworthy…can you say FAIR AND BALANCED? And it’s great that the information available is not only that which is fit to print, or that fits, but even though more people know more things they’re often wrong.

Spotify is the number one source of digital revenue in Scandinavia, a paragon of illegal downloading in case you’ve never heard of the Pirate Bay. It’s number two in Europe. Countries with Spotify had an increase of 43% in digital revenue, compared with 9.3% in those without it.

But Spotify’s the problem because some Website published a sexy graph with no context a year and a half ago and those who just heard of the streaming giant are still passing this info around, with the truth trailing behind.

The truth is piracy dwarfs legal acquisition. And despite what the RIAA says, it’s still burgeoning. Suing didn’t solve the problem. It’s about a viable legal alternative. Spotify is such.

But what’s even more flabbergasting is that Spotify is not a new concept. Although it sports an interface the public is inured to, having employed the look and feel of iTunes, the basic model has been around for nearly a decade, with Rhapsody then the legal Napster and now MOG, Rdio and…

In other words, despite all the hot air that no one wanted a subscription service, that no one wanted rental, most people had never experienced such and didn’t know how great it was.

Yes, the genius of Spotify is the marketing. Allowing a free trial.

Funny how a business built on dope can’t understand this. Imagine if no one ever got to try marijuana for free, how big would the market be?

So streaming is the future and Spotify puts a dent in piracy.

But we’ve still got Luddites lamenting the passage of the physical media/album model. Yup, that’s right. Apple’s on the verge of eliminating the disc, and those in the music industry are still crying about a half century old model disappearing. If the sixties were so great, how’d you like to drive a Plymouth Satellite? Cars got better and so did music delivery systems.

Spotify doesn’t mean you can’t buy the track. But you’re gonna find out no one wants to. It makes no sense. Look around at all those CDs in your house, losing value as I write this. When was the last time you played one? Oh now my inbox is gonna fill up with people who refuse to use a smartphone, decry the iPad and just can’t wait for liner notes to return. You’re a market, but like the one for vinyl, it’s extremely tiny. That’s how the music business got in trouble, appealing to dinosaurs, like the now-troubled Best Buy. And isn’t it funny that Wal-Mart closed up its MP3 shop. Yup, the Arkansas company notorious for driving down costs, screwing manufacturers in the process, lost out to a tech company with retail stores grossing the highest per square footage amount of any establishment and they don’t even sell music in the physical store, only in the virtual world. Isn’t it funny that Apple is the number one valued company in America and Wal-Mart’s stock is struggling.

It’s music. How we hear it is secondary to what we hear. And although I agree that a higher quality digital file would be better, the problem is with Washington, D.C. and the cable and wireless companies. Yup, South Korea trumps us in broadband speed, we’re so busy cutting expenses that we can’t even invest in infrastructure that pays dividends. There’s no YouTube without broadband and there’s no high quality files without ultra-fast broadband, but it ain’t coming fast.

Why own if you’ve got everything at your fingertips?

To lambaste Spotify is to believe we should live in a world where overpriced CDs with one good track are the only way to consume music. Turns out people didn’t like that model, and once they got a chance they abandoned it. And now they’re abandoning ownership for streaming. But it’s not only music, it’s movies too. Ever heard of a company called Netflix?

And as backward as the record companies are, the artists are even worse. So ignorant, dreaming of future stardom that will never come or daydreaming about the good old days, they’re completely uninformed regarding reality.

1. No one knows how much money people will make in the future for making music. But that’s not a reason to prop up the past model. That’s like making it illegal to innovate, like having to replicate Dr. Luke’s compositions over and over again. Wait, that’s what’s happening! And you’re pissed your music can’t be heard! Don’t you get it, the future is about venturing into the unknown. Record labels won’t do it, radio won’t do it. You know who does it? MTV, which doesn’t even call itself "Music Television" anymore. That old MTV with wall to wall videos? If it existed today, it’d be bankrupt, killed by free distribution online. MTV changed, can you?

2. With streaming, income is pursuant to plays. If someone plays your record forever, you’ll continue to get paid. Not so in the old days. People bought it and that was the last money you ever saw.

3. The barrier to access being lowered is a good thing. In the old days, if you weren’t on the radio, your record was a stiff. Now, people can hear everything for free. The old system is avoided. This works for you, don’t you get it? You’re going directly to fan. And if people don’t like your music, tough noogies.

4. Stop bitching about wireless bandwidth costs. Playlists sync on all these streaming services. In case you can’t understand that, if you’ve got a subscription, your playlists live on your mobile handset just like they do with an iPod, there’s no streaming bandwidth involved. And it’s even better! With Spotify you don’t get mobile unless you pay! Which drives subscriptions. And if you don’t know mobile’s the future you still think desktop computers outsell laptops and that both aren’t threatened by the iPad.

5. It took us a decade to get to here. How much longer do you want to prevent the future? So long that music is entirely free forever more? To the point that no one ever pays? History is littered with devastated business models. Either you adapt or die. IBM did and survived. Microsoft is trying and not doing so well. Smith-Corona is unknown to most readers of this screed.

Do I wish Spotify paid more?

OF COURSE!

But that’s like saying everyone will buy a Mercedes-Benz, especially when cars are free, which is what we’ve got in the music world.

Do I wish the majors didn’t own a slice of Spotify?

OF COURSE!

But without this model, it wouldn’t exist.

Do I believe that all development stops and Spotify wins for all time?

Google+ threatens Facebook which killed MySpace. Innovate or die.

Do I believe you’re entitled to get rich for making music?

No, I do not. If I had my druthers, more of you would give up and it’d be easier to separate the wheat from the chaff. But just like posting online, just like that Information is Beautiful graphic, anyone can distribute their music online. Meaning the real money comes to he who can extricate the winners from the losers and serve them to the hungry public. This person is going to make all the money, just like MTV did in the last century. And it won’t be based on algorithms and it’ll look simple after the fact, you’ll say you could have created it, but you’d rather bitch than get your hands dirty.

Listen to me. The ability to hear all of recorded music for a low price is a good thing. It enriches the lives of listeners and benefits creators if they’d just shut up and give it a chance.

We’re gonna have new superstars. Not because the system creates them, but because the public demands them. We need rallying points, we need social icons.

And those who fulfill this role will be so rich, your jaw will drop.

Wanna win?

Then record this music. Which appeals to more than your mother and musos. And just like the Beatles, it will not be lowest common denominator. It will be great.

And most music is not.

Spotify is just a distribution scheme. Just a tool, like a computer.

If you’re bitching about the computer, wishing we’d all go back to paper and ink, I feel sorry for you, life today must be very hard.

People want access.

He who grants access for a low fee, making tons of revenue by charging everyone a little, the cell phone model, will win in the future.

WE’RE FINALLY PLAYING THIS GAME IN MUSIC AND YOU WANT TO KILL IT?

He’s a fabulous actor, just watch him in "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" if you doubt me, but even if he can sing and play, that does not mean he’s entitled to a musical career.

I’m wincing as I endure the Jeff Bridges hype. There’s a tsunami of stories and none of them will break this guy big, because that’s just not how you do it anymore. No matter how much money is spent, no matter how many print outlets and TV stations your publicist leans upon, the public shrugs its shoulders and moves on, if it even notices to begin with.

This is the last hurrah of a dying paradigm.

If you want to make it today you’ve got to be a lifer, enduring pain and hardship to become great, in order to possibly have a career that pays your bills a few years down the line.

Nobody likes this. Everybody wants it instant. They want to believe if you just spend enough money you can become rich and famous. But that’s not how it works anymore. Remember that link shortening company Troy Carter funded a couple of months back? Chances are you probably never heard of it, it was stiff on arrival. Like most major label productions.

Jeff’s prior album, almost a decade ago, sold 3,000 copies according to SoundScan.

I’m surprised he hasn’t countered this "USA Today" story, everybody does, especially the indie acts, they all say they’ve sold 30,000 albums, or a hundred thousand, that they’re just falling through the cracks of the system. Everybody’s full of shit. Establishing artifice so you’ll believe they’re stars. But if they’re bragging, they’re not.

You just can’t see stardom anymore.

Stars used to be those who made it on radio.

Then those who booked TV appearances.

But now many people, especially Jeff Bridges fans, don’t even listen to radio anymore, unless it’s talk, or in the case of Bridges acolytes, NPR. And an appearance on late night TV might make you feel good, might give you a streamable video, but it won’t ignite your career, you’re just part of the endless sausage factory, ignored by the masses who’ve been beaten over the head with hype for so many years that they’re immune.

If Jeff Bridges really wanted to make it in music, he’d have to give up his acting career. And if he was lucky, maybe he’d make it in a decade or two. Isn’t that what Billy Bob Thornton did? I haven’t seen him in a movie in eons, then again who goes to the movies. And he became a laughingstock with that Canadian interview, you know, the one wherein he wouldn’t acknowledge he was a movie star. That’s why you got the interview Billy Bob, otherwise NO ONE CARES!

How do you make someone care…

First and foremost, you must be really good.

Jeff Bridges is not. He’s adequate. That’s just not good enough today. We only have time for great.

And you can be that good and at first get no traction. You see you’re waiting for that one person to turn everybody else on. Read Gladwell’s "Tipping Point", he lays it out.

Yup, you’ve got to wait for the Connector, who embraces your project and tells everybody about it and then drags people to the show. And it all goes down at the gig, that’s where people get tingly inside and bond with you. And you’d better be damn good, because otherwise everybody’s gonna just sit on their phones and talk. Been to a show recently? If there was a cellular blackout, people would be so flummoxed they’d probably split.

And once you light a fire in one market, you spread it to another. Only it happens in fits and starts. Wilco didn’t get big until they were dropped. Success is not a linear endeavor, it’s fraught with blind corners and wasted time and if you think you can short circuit it you’re sadly mistaken.

Jeff Bridges actually has a strike against him. Actors are second-rate musicians. That’s what the public believes. So if you’re an actor, you’ve got to be better than great.

And if he’s so damn good, why does he need people to tell us, shouldn’t we be able to find out ourselves, via our trusted sources?

No one from the old game, especially baby boomers, likes to acknowledge that the world has changed. They want to believe if you just know the right person and spend enough money you can get in front of the line, the same way you call up NetJet to deliver transportation.

But the mediaopolis has been torn down, and that which still remains is ignored. It’s built for a prior era. One of limited distribution wherein fat cats pushed their priorities down the throat of a hungry public.

Now people are inundated with entertainment and news. They’ve got a hell of a time managing what they’re already interested in, they only break in new stuff when it’s phenomenal or has train-wreck value.

So either you’ve got to be the real thing or fodder for TMZ.

Jeff Bridges’s musical career is neither. Which is why it’ll be ignored.

It’s just a circle jerk for those who haven’t gotten the Internet memo. Who don’t realize they’ve lost our trust via decades of abuse.

Top-down marketing is history. I’m surprised a cool dude like Jeff Bridges doesn’t know this.

1. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you make.

You build your own audience. There’s an established niche for every genre. From folk to metal. Don’t worry about playing to everybody, just play to somebody.

The last thirty years, the MTV era, has been about giving people what they want, which is just like what they’re already consuming. Major labels and major media, most especially radio, had control of a narrow sieve and if you didn’t fit, you couldn’t play. That is not true today. Those powers mean ever less. You can reach your audience easily online. You’ve just got to start.

2. You’ve got to be good.

This is about practice. We’re in a music era, not a marketing era. Ignore those who tweet and Facebook their goings-on instead of focusing on the music. It’d be like Steve Jobs selling Dell. It wouldn’t blow up overnight. Even better, Ferrari selling Smart cars. A great marketer is nothing without a great product, focus on the product.

Play for three or four hours a day. Take lessons. Play in your garage before you play in public.

3. Learn how to use Pro Tools/Logic.

You record yourself before pros want to work with you, before you can afford them. Technology is part of the music-making process. Knowing how to lay down the sound improves the end product. And once you know how the stuff works, you can tell professionals what you want in their terms, playing on their level. There’s no excuse for walking into a studio and being abused by pros who say they know better.

4. Fans are your best friends.

This is the essence of pay to play. Instead of bitching that the club owner won’t let you play unless you bring fans, bring those fans and generate so much cash that the booker will be dying to have you back. It’s your responsibility to make it, not someone else’s. The days of limited exposure that pay dividends are over. If you play a gig without bringing your own fans there’ll be no one there, or those who are just don’t care.

5. Fans start with friends.

Your friends are your street team. Don’t enable them until your music is ready, until they can turn someone on without losing credibility. You build from those you know, not those you don’t.

6. Play live as much as you can without losing money.

If people aren’t coming, stop playing out live and retool your act. Once they’re showing up, spread to new markets, trade gigs with those successful in other territories. Other bands are not your competition, but your friends.

7. Have something to sell at gigs.

People want to support you, they want souvenirs. They buy CDs and vinyl not to play, but to embody their belief in you, to evidence their identity. If you’re small, have only a few items for sale, otherwise people are turned off. Every time you tour a market again, have a new item for sale, a new patch, a new sticker. Don’t think so much about making money as enabling fans to spread the word.

8. Social networking is for fans.

Twitter and Facebook are irrelevant until you get traction. They’re rallying points for those who already believe. Once you’ve got fans, feed them information about gigs and goings-on. Once you’ve got a plethora of true believers, tweet and post about your inner life. No one cares until you approach stardom.

9. Stardom is on your own terms.

No chart can define stardom. Don’t compare your career with others. Don’t lose your path. The first goal is giving up your day job. Your second goal is earning enough money to buy a house. Your third goal is being able to take enough time off to be creative, to rekindle your muse.

10. Recordings

You need ’em once you’ve got traction. Quality is key. And quality must improve as your career grows. New fans at the advent will overlook your failings. But once you gain a name your music must be more polished and be able to close those who barely care, who are only doing a drive-by. If your music isn’t good enough at any point in the ascent, stop playing live and go back to practicing and writing.

11. You want an album for the gig.

Ironically, albums are most important when you’re starting out. Maybe it’s just an EP, four songs, but people want something they can bite into, can familiarize themselves with. Sure, start with one track, but then you’ve got nothing to sell at the gig. A great MP3 posted online, for free, so it can be traded, can rocket you into the stratosphere almost immediately, if it’s that good. But that’s a huge if. If your music is truly that great, and most isn’t, make that your calling card, maybe you don’t even have to play live at first, like Toronto’s Weeknd. But most people don’t emerge fully-formed, you’ve got to build more slowly, more gradually. Chances are you don’t even know where you’re going at first, you’ve got to find your way.

12. Once you’ve gained huge success, release a steady stream of music.

The music stokes the fire of the enterprise. It’s the kindling, not the log. You’re nothing without the music, which is why you should constantly satiate fans with new stuff. That keeps your touring numbers up, that allows you to sell merch. Taking a year or two off to record an album causes you to lose momentum. Sure, it might deliver a payday, but that paradigm is fading with the death of physical product and the replacement of MP3s with streaming.

13. YouTube

Your fans will post clips. Imperfections work for you. Amateurishness is in your favor. Same with traded live shows. This is fan business, which you must enable. Allow photos, recording and videotaping. This is your marketing. And don’t deliver authorized live shows, whether video or audio, until you have haters. That’s when you know you’ve truly made it, when you have vocal haters. These haters can be pointed to the high quality live stuff to be proven wrong. They won’t admit it, but it seeps in, it helps, like those clips of Lady Gaga alone at the piano.

14. Don’t sell out to anyone unless you’re in it for the short haul.

Major labels are about feeding a fading Top Forty market and those working there when you sign will be different from those employed even a year or two down the line. You don’t want to be beholden to anyone, because only you know the music and you must forge your own path.

We’re entering a new era where music is not only omnipresent, it once again trumps film and TV. But the responsibility is upon you, the younger generation. You’ve got to build it in order for them to come. You must put music ahead of money. You must respect everyone in the food chain. You must not rip anybody off.

People need things to believe in. The barrier to entry in music is minimal, providing rampant opportunities. You can deliver for them.

Forget everything you know prior to this date. About radio, labels and arena tours. That system was built for a different era. Labels were constructed for an era when there was limited distribution and recording was expensive. Now anybody can distribute and recording is cheap. Radio was the only way to hear the music. Now the music can be heard everywhere, it’s free for the taking on Spotify and YouTube. TV is where you go to meet the old guard playing by the old rules. MTV barely plays any music and the networks just air what is mainstream. The mainstream has been blown apart. There will be icons in the future, but the audience will come to the musicians, not vice versa. You won’t compromise, you won’t give people what they want, you’ll be unique and people will be drawn to you.

FORGET ABOUT MARKETING, FORGET ABOUT MONEY, FOCUS ON MUSIC AND THE REST WILL FALL IN PLACE!

Michael Phelps swam unknown in pools for over a decade before he became an overnight Olympic sensation. That’s how it’s gonna work in music. You’re gonna be paying your dues, unheralded, until finally you break through. You’re gonna be nobody, then somebody. Forget Justin Bieber, forget Greyson Chance, that isn’t music, that’s commerce. No different from selling hula-hoops, Furbys and pet rocks. Here today and gone tomorrow. Build to last, go for the long haul, have substance. Naysayers might state that they hate your music, but they’ll begrudgingly admit you can PLAY!

I discovered the Four Seasons on the jukebox at the Nutmeg Bowl. After a few strings and polishing my ball I ordered krinkly-kut french fries and poured my remaining dimes into a machine that held very few records, the best of which were played incessantly and are as memorable to me today as they were back then. There was "Dawn (Go Away)" and eventually "Rag Doll". And I can still hear the intro to "I Get Around", which the jukebox, unlike radio, never cut off.

Although my transistor radio was first used to listen to the Yankees, when the Beatles exploded it became my trusted companion, it lay aside my blotter while I was doing my homework, I placed it under my pillow when I went to bed. I needed to hear these hits, as a member of a club, pursuing excellence, bowing at the feet of players who made us sing and swoon, who positively thrilled us.

But those days are gone. The jukebox is rare and radio is inauthentic and no one believes those artists can play live. That’s one thing we assumed back then, that the people making those records could sing and play. And yes, the Wrecking Crew might have provided the background, but they didn’t go on the road, every band could play enough to convince us. And although we were horrified the Monkees didn’t play their own instruments, it turned out the band felt the same way, and learned how to play.

With the implosion of recorded music revenue, the mantra has been that you make up the money on the road. This concept has not been embraced by the old guard, from the songwriters to the performers. They believe the highest form of the art is embedded on plastic, purchased for an exorbitant price and listened to or thrown away, they don’t really care, you bought it, you own it, you can do with it what you like.

But this leaves the public out of the equation. A public with limited time and limited finances and a plethora of diversions. One overwhelmed by the cascade of music dumped upon them daily, most not worth an iota of listening time. This tsunami has become so unbearable that many have tuned it out completely. Newspapers review records ad infinitum, saying they’re good, but when you expend the effort to listen to them you scratch your head and vow not to repeat the process.

The old game still exists, but it does not work in the new world. Radio is about playing it safe, giving the public what it already knows, over and over again, so no one tunes out and a high rate for advertising can be charged.

Reviewers for newspapers are still in it for the perks. They want the free albums and concert tickets. They want to believe they’re intellectuals, handing wisdom down on tablets that they fail to realize no one is interested in anymore. People don’t want to debate what’s good or bad, argue the merits of that which does not appeal to them, what the great unwashed listen to, but to be served excellence, in a limited amount.

But we live in an unlimited universe. Imagine watching 500 TV channels if there were no rhyme or reason which outlet a show appeared upon, if there were no trusted guide. You’d give up. And many people have given up on new music.

And the labels and artists are no help. The labels used to have a lock on distribution. If they didn’t sign it, you didn’t hear it. They invested in the best. But in an era where the best might be extremely hard to break, where revenue might be years down the line, labels are no longer interested. Majordomos want to make the coin of bankers, whereas just being close to the creative process was satiation enough years back, the money was an afterthought, as it was for so many of the early classic rock acts.

And since the barrier to entry is so low, every artist is Tony Robbins or Gene Simmons, a huckster trying to sell crap with a smile. Artists are not to be trusted.

As for online recommendation engines, they’re not to be trusted either. Pitchfork is inconsistent and Pandora is inhuman. They satisfy some, but they’re like going to a restaurant where there’s a different cook every night. Sometimes the food might be good, but that’s such a rare event you ultimately withhold your money and your time.

In the old days, with radio and print breaking acts, we’d go to see one or two of them live, maybe a package bill of three at the Fillmore. There was a system driving us to the hall. But as stated above, that system is now bankrupt. Trying to get someone to pay to see a new act is nigh near impossible. Meanwhile, the acts are bitching all along that they can’t get paid, as if they’re entitled.

This inability to develop new acts is one of the primary drivers of the festival. Along with continued success of the format in the U.K. and European nations.

The breakthrough was Coachella. And then came Bonnaroo. But they both suffered by preaching to the converted. Both occurred in isolated places, that were hard to get to and could be easily ignored, whereas the best music of yore was positively in our face. Whether it be on radio or "Ed Sullivan" or MTV. Everybody watched, everybody listened, and they wanted to. Coachella is for hipsters. There’s always an old warhorse and too many wannabes. It’s like a hip restaurant you can’t get into. You’re aware of it, but you ask yourself, is this for me?

And Bonnaroo is for a younger generation that missed Woodstock, desiring to camp in the mud and do drugs. And although at first the bills were hippie fodder, now it appears to be a compendium of whatever can sell tickets, there’s no rhyme or reason as to who is booked, there’s no soul.

Now my inbox will fill up with promoters and fans telling me how wrong I am, talking about how much money Coachella and Bonnaroo take in. These knee-jerkers are missing the point. It’s not about money, it’s about bringing new acts to the public and having those acts sustain.

The two biggest festivals today are Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza. It doesn’t seem to matter who they book, people believe in "the brand". But more importantly, they’re both based in cities. This is the future. It can’t be hard to attend the festival, it must be easy. And the main selling point has to be curation, that the organizers are booking the best of the best.

Unfortunately, Lollapalooza is still booking way too many acts, believing that everybody’s a grazer and wants quantity, as if a Vegas buffet trumped a Danny Meyer restaurant. Future festivals will have fewer acts. Then again, not every act makes it to the YouTube stream, and those that do have an imprimatur of greatness, this is their big break.

Let’s revisit the formula. You hone your chops, barely able to break even until a festival organizer booking a city-based event makes a deal for you to perform. Then this same booker makes sure you’re featured on the YouTube stream. With this imprimatur, people pay attention.

Festivals are the new radio and bookers are the new deejays. It’s just that simple.

And to win in this world, you’ve got to have the chops, you’ve got to be able to play. And like a comedian on Carson, when you get your one big chance you’ve got to kill. And if you do, your career will be made.

Let me stress, there are limited slots. Most people can’t play. Those who aren’t good don’t get a chance. Like parents insisting their barely-athletic child get a trophy for standing on the corner of the soccer field, everybody believes they get to participate in the new music world. That’s just wrong. It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll and most people don’t have the perseverance, never mind the skill.

But we are interested in those who’ve got it. It’s the festival organizer’s job to make this match.

Being in an iTunes commercial or on "Grey’s Anatomy" ain’t bad, but those are records, everyone knows those can be faked, that you can suck live and probably do.

And although dancing and pyrotechnics can be interesting, that’s a different business than music, that’s spectacle, and the hungry music fan just doesn’t care to see it.

And recommendations online are cheap and voluminous.

But there’s something about seeing a band live. One that can truly play its instruments. That makes you get that tingling feeling inside.

It rarely translates to tape, the YouTube clip is just an advertisement… For the show, when the band comes to your town.

Grace Potter has a better chance of breaking through after performing at Lollapalooza than she does as a result of being on that Kenny Chesney record, as a result of any television appearance. Because performing live is like being at Yankee Stadium. You’ve got to deliver or you’re booed. And when you hit a home run, everybody knows.

But you play your whole life before you start for the Yankees. You spend years in the minor leagues. And if the Yankees field a crummy team, revenues will go down.

And a great athlete is poetry in motion. We revel in the movement.

But a great musician is more than that. The performance is not only external, but internal. Something inside is being translated from player to listener. And when it’s done without a net, with the possibility of mistakes, we revel in the humanity.

The more technological breakthroughs we develop, the more important it is to get back to our roots. I love my computer, but it’s the opposite of music. It’s cold and unthinking, whereas music is warm and fuzzy and positively alive.

And the best place to demonstrate this is live.

And the best place to do this is where everybody is watching.

We can spread the word so quickly online. But no one wants to hear about anything that isn’t great, that doesn’t have substance.

City festivals are the launching pad. Bookers are the linchpins. Food and amenities add to the experience, but the real drawing power is the music. When done right, it’s enough.