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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > July > 10 > Entry
Exit Fest Fallout
According to ExitFest “Born on the Fifth of July” organizer Will Matthews, there was nothing wrong with the July 5 rock festival at Waterloo Park that a couple thousand patrons couldn’t cure.
“I was impressed by the festival,” Matthews said this week. “The bottom line for the festival was that people didn’t show up. If people had shown up, we would be having a completely different conversation.”
Indeed. There were virtually no patrons at ExitFest. I saw perhaps 60 or 70 at any one time. There was also almost no advertising for the festival, nor were final line-ups posted anywhere on the Web site. There was a $20 cover ($10 for kids under 10, a deal-breaker for many parents).
It was also held on the long Fourth of July weekend when many folks head out of town. And many of the bands said they went unpaid, or in the case of the South Austin Jug Band, canceled their appearance when the pre-show deposit was not made in time.
The plug was pulled on the festival before headliners Nelo and the Black and White Years played. “The festival was not doing what we thought was going to happen, so we decided to stop the show early on before the Black and White Years went on. It was the best idea for the festival at that time.”
The list of complaints by bands included that there was no water or beer for them, which can be genuinely dangerous if you’re playing in over 90-degree heat. Many bands brought their own.
“I could chalk all this up to inexperience,” Matthews said of his first go at staging a music festival. “I’m not ashamed of that. You learn from your mistakes, you pick up, you make sure that everyone is compensated and then you plan a festival that is more financially productive,” meaning that he intends to eventually pay the bands what they are owed, though Matthews declined to discuss questions of production or financial backers.
There was also no beer, which would seem to violate a cardinal rule of the Austin outdoor festival business: Austinites actually don’t care as much as you might think about what they hear as long as they can drink beer in a field.
“I don’t feel the need to sell beer at everything that we do,” Matthews said.
As for what he would do differently, Matthews says he would start with a different date. “If you’re not established on a national holiday, it’s hard to compete with it. I heard a lot of people say they had partied at lot on the Fourth and the Third and just didn’t make it out,” he said.
Matthews, a former University of Texas fullback, couldn’t resist a football metaphor. “I know that on third and long when the coach runs the ball and he doesn’t get the first down, people call him an idiot. If he gets the first down, they say he has guts and he’s a genius.
“I’m not hiding from this, he continued. “Everybody knows my phone number, it’s still up on our Web site. We’re not scared. We plan to do more shows, more festivals and more things to fix our image in the community.”
Comments
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By Informer
July 10, 2008 11:36 AM | Link to this
fyi….The Black and White Years and Nelo pulled out of the festival because Matthews defaulted their contracts by not paying deposits. His quote is inaccurate. The production crew shut it down on their own after realizing they weren’t going to get paid.
By Ana
July 10, 2008 12:40 PM | Link to this
I was at the 2nd stage waiting for Zeale32 and one of the stage managers was wondering through the crowd asking if anybody from Zeale32 was around. Bad sign.
By will rodgers
July 11, 2008 4:03 PM | Link to this
hahahaha.
“I don’t feel the need to sell beer at everything that we do,” Matthews said.
By Tom
July 12, 2008 8:07 AM | Link to this
Isn’t this the first event that the “Exit Music Group” has ever put together?
I believe that qualifies as an “epic fail.”
By Truth
July 19, 2008 10:41 AM | Link to this
Word on the street is NONE of the bands have been paid still.
:(