This Ain't No Picnic . . . 2023??

[iantmcfarland]

Walked up to the Goldenvoice information booth at Just Like Heaven yesterday and asked if This Ain't No Picnic was returning this year and got a very labored response. The woman with GV said something along the lines of "Oh, well . . . I haven't heard anything, but sign up for the email newsletter and we'll let you know when there's news".

Obviously that's incredibly vague and could be taken either way. Maybe she was just trying to get me to sign up for the newsletter, but it struck me as more likely that she was not allowed to talk about the festival yet.

So I'm changing my outlook on this returning from slightly pessimistic to slightly optimistic. If it does return, I imagine it will need to get announced in the next week or two. You could see Goldenvoice holding off until their spring festivals are in the cans, but they can't hold off much longer.

[wxdude]

I'm kind of doubting it since it appears Primavera Sound L.A. isn't likely either at this point. TANP was an obvious attempt by GV/AEG to blunt Primavera Sound's foray into the Los Angeles market with rival partner Live Nation. The original PS in Barcelona, its clone in Madrid, and the Porto, Portugal versions are only a few weeks away and set to go. Plus November and December dates have already been announced for four PS in South America. However, there has been radio silence about a U.S. version. I'm guessing that there were probably revenue losses for both TANP and PSLA, as they seemed to cannibalize each other within a few week span for lineups geared to pretty much the same indie-minded target customers. The question is whether either would be willing to roll the dice again.

[iantmcfarland]

Definitely agree that Primavera won't be coming back at any point soon. And yeah, TANP was always clearly Goldenvoice's way of warning certain Spanish interlopers to stay off their turf, but I have to admit I hadn't considered the idea that TANP might have lost money - although I do get the rationale behind putting up a festival even if you're not expecting to make much money in that situation.

[wxdude]

One other thing to consider is that it is nearly the end of May, and there has been no TANP announcement. The lineup for last year's festival was released in December 2021. It would be highly unusual these days for GV to give only three months notice for a festival happening at the end of August, assuming it would be scheduled the same weekend again. Plenty of advance notice is now SOP for SoCal events since they encourage potential attendees with limited funds to purchase tickets/passes with a payment plan. There would not be enough time to adequately allow for layaway.

Also, GV has already announced its fall electroic/dance-oriented Portola music festival in SF for 9/10 and 10/1. It seems they would have announced TANP before that if it was happening again.