Three days, eight stages, 137 acts. For the organizers of Lollapalooza, reserve the right combination of bands baby up and comers and the headliners is only the first challenge. Then you must solve a puzzle programming constantly changing to meet the fans, avoid traffic bottlenecks feet, and bands get in and out of the land at the time.
Although the selection of the best talent is fairly predictable (Lolla bookers say some big names have already been hung for summer 2015), the sub - headliners are always in flux. "At this time last year I had not even heard of Lorde," says promoter C3 Presents Huston Powell.
Last summer, after the teen singer from New Zealand reached its radar, booked him a Lollapalooza in Chile. By last October, his song “Royals" was breaking, but she only had a handful of small gigs in the U.S. However, he offered her a plum slot Friday night on a main stage in Chicago. "Pretty unprecedented for a first act, first record," he says.
Lollapalooza has a huge footprint, which occupies 115 acres in Grant Park in Chicago. Organizers try to keep attendees circulating, avoiding the cardinal sin of putting their two favorite bands at the same time. C3’s office in Austin, Texas, Grid programming is edited in a spreadsheet.
"Every day you look at the time intervals, to the point where you are going blind," says co -founder C3 Charles Attal. They look out for gender conflicts (rappers Eminem and Outkast are on separate nights) and employ some counterprogramming. For example, the American stars of the Avett Brothers will be performing at the south end of the park when the rapper Childish Gambino is on the north end.
Some of the major events this year, including Outkast, Lorde and Arctic Monkeys are also set to perform on the same weekend at the Osheaga festival in Montreal. So Lolla team contacted promoters in Canada to ensure plenty of cushions in the lists of others to travel at least 10 hours between locations, including a border crossing.
And then there is the imperfect art of displaying 137 names on the Lollapalooza website for the announcement of the lineup in the spring. Bands that ended in the bottom of the list this year: Highly suspicious, Plastic Visions, Oyinda, Rocky Business. Creating Poster alignment “is an exercise in itself," says Mr. Attal. "There are 20 calls from managers and agents to get deals done and then you get 20 calls on where they are on the line."
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