Lollapalooza 2011 sells out 'early-bird' discount tickets
Though it hasn’t even announced its lineup yet, Lollapalooza remains a hot ticket. Promoters said Tuesday that so-called “early bird” tickets – a $185 three-day pass for the festival Aug. 5-7 in Grant Park – sold out in about an hour, and now only $215 three-day passes remain on its Web site, lollapalooza.com.
The price for the three-day passes is the same as last year. Headliners haven’t been announced, but the Tribune has confirmed that Eminem, the Foo Fighters and Muse will be among those named when the lineup is officially announced April 26.
Capacity for the festival was bumped to 95,000 last year and acreage was increased to accommodate a bigger audience after the festival sold out two previous years.
greg@gregkot.com
So far the lineup is pretty awful...each year this festival moves away from it's roots as a showcase of weird and wonderful music and moves more toward a quick cash grab. This will probably the first year I don't attend.
Posted by: Early Dork Discount | April 05, 2011 at 01:26 PM
Two years ago the "early bird" prices were available for weeks, last year they were availabile for days and this year they were available for minutes....and still there is no published lineup! There is nothing inherently wrong with making a lot of money from a music festival, but offering these alleged discounts for an unannounced and ever-shrinking length of time is a shady practice.
Every pre-sale practice in the music business tells you when the pre-sale ends. That Lollapalooza does not - and this year did not even keep the early bird window open long enough for email subscribers to find out about the price before it was no longer availalble - does them no honor, and dents the integrity of the brand...at least as it applies to fairness and fan-friendliness.
Posted by: doug hurdelbrink | April 05, 2011 at 02:19 PM
Nicely said by Doug. I was thinking the exact same thing. Pretty obvious to me that Lolla is selling a lot less "golden" tickets and early-bird tickets this year in order to make more money. What other reason could there be for the early-bird tix being sold out in minutes whereas the last few years they were around for at least a week if not longer?
Posted by: Jon | April 05, 2011 at 05:50 PM
If the demand is there and people are paying, then that is what sets the price. Why would they sell 10k tickets at 185 if they could get 215
Posted by: joe | April 05, 2011 at 07:24 PM
The early-bird presale was advertised on the Lolla website for a week not to mention in their initial golden ticket email subscribers received on March 28. I was able to get discounted tickets but understand the angst of those who did not.
It seems that there are numerous festivals available to cover every niche imaginable. Just go to the ones you like and leave it at that - no one is going to miss you if you don't go to Lolla.
Posted by: L | April 05, 2011 at 07:49 PM
Well I guess my case is a little different than most people. I work nights so I have to sleep until mid-afternoon so you can imagine how stunned I was when I was told the tix were sold out by 10:30 AM after they lasted a full week last year.
Posted by: Jon | April 05, 2011 at 11:30 PM
We were just talking to a friend about how this year probably WON'T sell out because the line up is nothing to go gaga about...guess we were wrong
Posted by: Pinto and the Bean | April 06, 2011 at 08:51 PM
how can you base a lineup on three acts? if you don't like those headliners, there will be three others to chose from, as well as tons of other bands throughout the 3 days. i think it's great lollapalooza is so popular, and if you think about it from their side like Jon mentioned, why sell tickets at $185 when people will pay $215? makes sense to me, i still think it's well worth the price of admission
Posted by: Alex | April 08, 2011 at 05:47 PM