Summer is here and this year’s festival season is already in its second month. Pickathon is now a mere 85 days away with tickets selling faster and earlier than ever before. We’re limited to only 3,500 tickets for each day, so we strongly suggest you don’t wait as there will be very limited quantities available at the gate.

In other news, Pitchfork recently published their annual analysis of festival lineup gender balance & uniqueness. If you missed it, they released their first analysis of this kind in April 2017. They look at the top 20 festivals and sort each festival’s lineup according to gender balance and uniqueness. The uniqueness factor is based on how many other festivals an artist is playing or not playing. We appreciate the opportunity to be included in the analysis for the second year in a row, and it’s definitely worth taking a look.

We want to add that the Pitchfork article lineup math did not account for our most recent wave of additions, including: I’m With Her, Shovels & Rope, Sheer Mag, Sunflower Bean, Frazey Ford, Wild Child, Alela Diane, Overcoats, and Rasheed Jamal. So there’s that, with regard to their observations. In this same vein, only the first-round lineup’s are included for all of the festivals in this analysis. Pitchfork will be integrating lineup additions for all festivals in an amendment to be released in the next month or so.

One last thing on this list of contemporaries: The majority of festivals listed in this study are owned and operated by either Live Nation or Goldenvoice. Below are attendance numbers for scale:

Independently-operated festivals:
Pickathon: 3,500 daily
Pitchfork: 19,000 daily
Boston Calling: 20,000 daily
Bunbury Festival: 60,000 total
Osheaga: 135,000 total
Primavera: 200,000 total
Outside Lands: 200,000 total

Goldenvoice:
FYF: 20,000 daily (recently cancelled for 2018)
Panorama: 40,000 daily
Coachella: 125,000 daily
Hangout Festival: 40,000 total
Firefly Festival: 90,000 total

Live Nation:
Sasquatch: 20,000 daily
Sloss: 25,000 total
Shaky Knees: 50,000 total
Forecastle: 60,000 total
Bonnaroo: 65,000 total
Bottlerock: 120,000 total
Governors Ball: 150,000 total
Lollapalooza: 400,000 total

We want to acknowledge that we have our own blind spots and can always improve our lineup balance and diversity. Twenty years is a long time to do anything in one’s life and we are thankful for this annual tradition that so many of you have helped make possible. Our attendees, supporters, partners, volunteers, and collaborators all deserve the best possible experience that we can conjure up, and we owe each of you our best effort in curating artists that we can proudly say define us as an event and as a community.

Thank you for joining us on this journey! See you in 12 weeks!