Connection Festival Launches September 12th 2014

[CityLife]

Yea, I don't have the time or desire to bring a music festival to Jax at this point in my life. I'd be happy to drop a list of 50-150 bands that would be draws for millenials and that typically play in the top of the line festival scene to anyone trying to put a music festival on, and I'm sure many others would as well.

FYI, Washed Out's album ranked #6 in MJ's top albums of 2013 list....

[benfranklinbof]

Ohhh if Washed Out came then I would definitely go! I only know of them from researching the "Portlandia" theme song.
I'm still debating if I should go or not lol.
This is a pretty cool festival though!
I only know like six of the bands. Time to do some research!
If this is an annual event then I expect more bands will join.
Thats if this festival is successful, which I'm sure it'll have a nice turn out.

This is random but I saw that "The Book of Mormon" will be coming to jax in February. Its a Broadway musical from the creators of south park. Its hilarious, check it out if you don't what it is. The song "Hello" is probably their most popular song.

[CityLife]

lol.  relevant to?.........

No offense, but I always thing that this is the lamest activity ever.  Coming up with ways you would have done it better,----before an actual event happens.

Its just terribly, terribly lame.

I like music as much as the next music snob, actually.  But I try not to sell a personal taste as an actual judgement.  Its one of my least favorite things about this town.  People are so eager to show how they are cooler than, or better endowed with that they rarely ever do anything and only occasionally support good things.

I've traveled to NYC for a music festival this year, and have been to Atlanta for a few shows, but I have no interest in this festival in my backyard that is dirt cheap. That is not on me. That is on the promoters of the festival for bringing in a weak lineup.

I'd more than happily go out of my way to support a local festival (I went to Talleyrand fyi) and would work hard to bring people to this, but sorry, its not even on the radar. Quite a few people I've talked to feel the same way. Perhaps after a year of learning how to do this, they will be better equipped to bring in a stronger lineup.

[CityLife]

You say things like that, as if it is everyone's life ambition to bring in a music festival. I've never tried to put on a music festival and never will. Just like I've never written a book or screenplay, but sure as heck can judge a bad one when I see one.

Surely, you've never passed judgment Stephen?

[Downtown Osprey]

Tachale, good for you for supporting. I mean that.  But to say that this has a higher ceiling than other things attempted before is...misguided I think.  Talleyrand was better and cheaper.  Hell even the I-forget-the-name-of-it annual festival that ran downtown for a few years and featured Jax-centric acts (Rob Roy was headliner that one year "Fur in My Cap" was big) spread out over downtown venues seems better than this.

I dont know. Call me a music snob or even just a prick, but I think when your big names are Less Than Jake and Sugarhill Gang, you are quite clearly doing it wrong.

I think you're thinking of "Conmoto".

What I mean by the higher ceiling is the way the event is set up. It's in the middle of downtown and many of the venues are places that would be doing things anyway. I think it has a higher potential for an event of this scale than, say, if they rented out Metro Park or the St. Augustine Amphitheater or some other relatively isolated venue, where you have to bring everything in and also worry about getting people through the gate. I probably wouldn't go to this if it were at Metro Park or the St. Augie Amphitheater. But when it's centered around places I'd go anyway, that's a different story. And if it were to take off and grow in the future, it would have a much higher impact on the surrounding area than an event at a more isolated place.

Fair points. Credit to them for setting up the festival this way. After last year's One Spark, I was calling for them to do exactly this type of set up, just at night as after shows during One Spark. I think it would be far more successful that way, rather than as a stand alone festival. I'd actually think both festivals would be more successful together.

That said, the lineup is very underwhelming. Someone earlier in the thread called Surfer Blood a "great, great band". Really? Don't get me wrong, I like them, but they probably aren't even a top 50 indie band of the past decade or so (not just my opinion). The 2000's is quite possibly the deepest (not saying best) period of music ever. To only get one quasi relevant newer band is not good. Hopefully, if this turns out to be a bust, it won't deter or prevent future good festivals from happening locally. I know Talleyrand was a bit of a setback.

Surfer Blood is a great band. Musically speaking, does it really matter if they aren't a top 50 "indie" band? And by who's opinion are you referring to?

[CityLife]

@DowntownOsprey, you don't believe Surfer Blood are a top 50 band do you? They were like the 100th billed band at this years Coachella and played an early afternoon set, just to give a little perspective....

[benfranklinbof]

I just looked up the band Swimm and they're amazing!

[KaelaConnectFest]

Hi All!
I just wanted to introduce myself quick, I am Kaela I work on the Team for Connection Festival. We are really excited for this coming up weekend. This is our first year with the festival and are working hard to bring local, national and international music, art and commerce to Downtown. Our Main Stage is the only ticket area, so if you are not feeling the bands we encourage you to check out our Free Venue Series, Art Exhibitions, Performances and Workshops. We have a lot of incredible local artists who are bringing their talents this weekend so we are trying to give them as much support as possible. We hope to see you there and if not this year maybe the next!

[CityLife]

Thanks for the info Kaela. While I fall in the camp of not feeling the headliners, I'm still going to come out and support the local acts and venues.

I'll also put my money where my mouth is and offer to help out personally and financially next year, if needed.

[CityLife]

^I believe they ended up letting people in for free Saturday night, and were selling tickets at half price yesterday. Not good, but not surprising.

Hopefully the local venues did well though.

[jaxjaguar]

Not only that, but better advertisement... Literally no one that I spoke to knew about it.  I knew several people who wanted to attend, myselfincluded, but couldn't because we didn't find out about it until a few days before... 

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

actually 100% of the problem was the almost total lack of promotion.

<sarcasm> Right.  :thumbup </sarcasm>*





*This comment was posted for the sole purpose of following this thread in an attempt to witness more back-peddling than Roger Goodell after the Ray Rice video was leaked.

[johnnyliar]

Oh man, I've held my tongue on this whole Connection Fest thing, and I feel like after playing at the Fest and attending the Fest, I think I can finally offer my take on the whole ordeal.

The lineup was sub-par.
There were not enough bands to warrant a ticket price of $40 per single day ticket, and whatever it was they were charging for two days. Even if you are a HUGE Cibo Matto, Less than Jake, Surfer Blood, etc. fan, 40 bucks is a LOT to spend to see one band, and there are very few people whose musical tastes include a serious love for all three of those bands.
I mean, I LOVED LTJ growing up, Played Cibo Matto's "Birthday Cake" so much my mom hid my ipod, and have listened to Surfer Blood plenty of times, but 40 bucks to go see them was more than double what I thought the experience would be worth. Look at the Lineup that "The Big Ticket" released today! HUGE bands from today and years passed, for only $35.

No Main stage on Friday Night and bands on Sunday
The bands playing Main stage on Sunday evening were depressed. They couldn't believe how few people were there. Less Than Jake took a ton of jabs at the festival and their time slot, and some members of Cibo Matto looked visibly upset. To me, there's no reason to have bands on Sunday night and not have had large bands playing late into the night on Friday.

Local Venue Shows were free!
I benefited from this, because there were plenty of people at Burro when my band took the stage, and it didn't cost anyone a penny! However, why not help bring the cost of the Main Stage tickets down by charging something, ANYTHING, for local bands at local venues. Also, I think it would have been a better idea to make one ticket that gets you access to every venue downtown (including Main stage) for one price, and a ticket for each venue that you could piecemeal together. I don't know if they considered this, or if venues would have agreed to this, but it seems to me that it would have worked better.

Promotion
Now this, I don't know about, because I've known about this Festival since One Spark, saw posters in every business in the Core for months, and heard a radio ad a couple weeks ago, but if Stephen says that it was poorly promoted, I do believe him.

I've never organized a festival before, but I've played in my fair share, and I've got to say that this one was definitely poorly planned. Nothing against the CF people, who I hear are very nice. I sincerely hope that it continues next year and succeeds in the future.

[AuditoreEnterprise]

It was a good concept, but like I was discussing with a friend of mine. Not too many people are actually going to pay 40 dollars to see a show like that. It had good intentions no doubt, to create a second one spark, but one spark being free and promoted to the point of no return really is what drove that success. Maybe they should have sought some top tier sponsors much like one spark did, that way they could have afforded to have a no cost show. As stephen pointed out though if people don't know then they wont go. I actually never heard a radio plug about this and haven't seen an advertisement anywhere that wasn't in the downtown district. I saw one spark flyers as far away as Fernandina Beach

[CityLife]

Lets say the headliners of the festival were Radiohead, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, and Outkast, as opposed to Naughty By Nature, Less Than Jake, and Sugarhill Gang. Would the attendance have been the same? Nope, there would have been 50,000+, including people from all over the south. Sure, the festival may not have been well promoted.... However, at some point a certain level of quality requires little to no promotion.

We ended up having a spin off thread about some of the relatively current stable of bands that would have drawn crowds, but I'll list it again. These are the type of bands that play at festivals that draw hundreds of thousands of people, some of them to fields in the middle of nowhere.

Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, The Shins, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, The Walkmen, Broken Social Scene, Arctic Monkeys, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Interpol, Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, Animal Collective, Phoenix, Tame Impala, Wilco, The National, Outkast, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, White Stripes, Decembrists, Postal Service, Avalanches, Wolf Parade, Destroyer, Bon Iver, Spoon, The Libertines, Belle and Sebastian, Band of Horses, Doves, Camera Obscura, TV on the Radio, Flaming Lips, The Killers, Black Keys, Neon Indian, Of Montreal, Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, Local Natives, Beach House, New Pornographers, Florence and the Machine, Rilo Kiley, St. Vincent, Beirut, Andrew Bird, Franz Ferdinand, Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, Bloc Party, Panda Bear, Real Estate, Deerhunter, Bright Eyes, Kings of Leon's early stuff, Empire of the Sun, The Cribs, M83, Ryan Adams, Girls, Edwards Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Washed Out, The xx, Future Islands, Foxygen, War on Drugs, MIA, Jack White, Disclosure, Muse, Pretty Lights, Broken Bells, Chvrches, Haim, Head and the Heart, Grouplove, Avett Brothers, No Age,  Alabama Shakes, Wiz Khalifa, Portugal the Man, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Drive by Truckers, Yeasayer, JJ Grey and Mofro, Mumford and Sons, Passion Pit, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Fiery Furnaces, Cat Power, Feist, Neko Case, Foster the People, Major Lazer, Daft Punk, Sigur Ros, Death from Above 1979, Girl Talk, Bastille, Jagwar Ma, Kid Cudi, Cage the Elephant, Lana Del Ray, Ellie Goulding, Chance the Rapper, STRFCKR, STS9, Bassnectar, Hot Chip, Bat for Lashes, La Roux, Grimes, M Ward, Miike Snow, Toro Y Moi, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Best Coast, Architecture in Helsinki, Gotye, Jens Lenkman, Ting Tings, Temper Trap, Fitz and the Tantrums, Peter, Bjorn, and John, Cold War Kids, Albert Hammond Jr., Mates of State, Stars, Metric, Cayucas, and on and on....

You get a strong group from that bunch and you have a hundred thousand college kids from Florida and Georgia wanting to come, along with general music fans from all over. End of discussion.