What’s the Optimal Time for a Festival Performance? Don’t Sleep on the Sunset Slot at Coachella
variety.comLily Moayeri A festival poster is not unlike an optometrist’s eye chart. The top names are clearly visible, even from a distance, drawing your gaze and keeping it focused.
But does that font size translate to the best festival time slot for the artist? Or is that headlining slot not actually the holy grail it’s cracked out to be?“In a festival environment, the headline slot might not be the most ideal one,” says Evan Winiker, managing partner at Range Media Partners, who counts Max, Disco Biscuits and Walk Off the Earth among his clients.There are a number of factors working against that headlining slot.
For one, you’re competing with other headliners, particularly if you’re not the main stage headliner. And if you’re up against a once-in-a-lifetime headlining artist like Beyoncé at Coachella 2018, you might as well have played at noon on the last day of the festival, as you would have had the same number of people present at your stage. “If an artist is performing later at night on a side stage or a tent, they’ve got real competition,” says Winiker.Mike “G” Guirguis, music agent at United Talent Agency, who represents The Kid Laroi, Demi Lovato, Burna Boy, among others, disagrees. “The goal is always to be a headliner,” he says. “That’s every artist’s ambition: to close the main stage.
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