Kevin Lyman, the founder of The Vans Warped Tour, has announced that this summers festival will be the last cross-country tour, putting an end to the last traveling music festival in North America, as reported by Billboard. Lyman, who founded the tour in 1994 cited some reasons for the festival’s demise, namely that declining ticket sales among the teenage demographic, a shrinking pool of bands to pull from and a changing landscape in the summer festival industry, where music fans seek unique destination festivals over traveling ones.
For many people, the Warped Tour became a way to discover emerging new talent in the punk and metal underground, with bands such as Blink-182, No Doubt, Paramore, and Avenged Sevenfold among the distinguished Warped alumni also artists such as Katy Perry, Eminem, Kid Rock, the Black Eyed Peas. The musical diversity was always one of the festival’s strengths, with metal bands sharing the stage with pop-punk, ska, reggae, and indie rock acts and 2018’s version will no doubt continue in the same vein.
However, Lyman pointed out that the kind of youth involvement that once drove the festival in its early days is no more, with a much older and different crowd now turning out. Without the youth involvement the fanbase required to make the festival financially viable has disappeared. While the large-scale tour may be coming to a close, Lyman indicated to Billboard that he does have plans to continue the festival for one more year in 2019 to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of the Warped Tour.
No lineup has been announced as of yet by Lyman has indicated that there will be a mix of up and coming bands with more well-known, veteran acts.
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