Live Nation’s festival promises to bring together a legendary lineup, but is it too good to be true?
If you’ve been on social media this past week, then you have certainly seen the announcement for Live Nation’s When We Were Young Festival. Featuring bands like My Chemical Romance and Paramore, this festival seems like the dream lineup of essential punk and emo bands from the early 2000’s—perfect for those who have remained fans or want to relive the music of their youth. But could this once-in-a-lifetime festival be too good to be true?
Immediately following the announcement, social media users began to point out some of the similarities between the When We Were Young Festival and Fyre Festival, a fraudulent luxury music festival in which attendants were scammed in numerous ways. One such similarity is WWWY festival’s $12,500 VIP cabana package which, according to their website, only includes tickets, the cabana and two bottles of “premium liquor”—among other amenities that should already be included in the ticket price like restrooms, charging stations, access to food trucks (at an extra cost) and free water stations. The general admission ticket—the cheapest ticket option available—costs $224.99.
Hosted by Live Nation, the promoter is perhaps the most troubling thing about this music festival. Live Nation is the company responsible for Astroworld, the mass casualty event that killed 10 people. With a $2 billion lawsuit on the horizon, it’s quite possible that Live Nation is trying to cash in on nostalgia as a way of paying.
Taking place on Oct. 22, this music festival plans to include 65 artists in its lineup across three different stages. Conflicting schedules at musical festivals are exceedingly common, but not to this level. With 65 bands and so little time, many of the festival’s openers are expected to only play for 20 minutes, while the headliners My Chemical Romance and Paramore, the former of which has only recently got back together, will play for an hour. Presale tickets sold out in a matter of minutes. With unending queues and waitlist signups, the festival received a barrage of hate from those unable to get tickets—so much so that the festival added a second date.
Strangely enough, some bands did not know they were scheduled to play this festival until the lineup was released this past Tuesday. Royal and the Serpent posted on their Instagram story, “I literally found out when y’all did im just as surprised as u are..” The band’s account also commented, “who was gonna tell me I’m on this lineup” on a viral Instagram post. Strangely enough, The Killers are not present in the lineup for this concert despite the festival ripping its name off of one of their most famous hits, “When We Were Young.”
The festival’s COVID-19 protocols are non-existent. As of right now, the festival will not require attendees to show proof of vaccination status or negative test results upon entry. The festival’s terms of agreements state that they have the right to change the lineup or cancel the festival entirely. In a now viral Tweet, twitter user @misssssneek claims, “I just dove into the terms and conditions policies and basically what I’m seeing is that they leave themselves a loophole where they don’t promise a refund in all cases of cancellation.”
When We Were Young Festival has not made any response to the many social media posts that have brought up these valid concerns. Regardless, many of the bands involved have taken to Instagram to voice their excitement for the concert and the prospect of seeing old friends from “back in the day.” If the festival can pull off this weighty lineup, then this concert will be one for the history books.
