Music festivals are becoming a way for Orange County cities to draw crowds in short bursts at events throughout the year.
Tourism gets hot in summer—but travel and leisure marketers routinely refer to “shoulder seasons” and hotels and restaurants want ways to warm up under-utilized gaps in calendars and bring in clientele.
There will be at least a dozen events this year, often with tens of thousands of daily visitors (see “Crescendo” box, page 45).
At least half debut or host their first encore appearance this year, and others are still early on the local scene with under four years of events.
Doheny Blues Festival, which was held two weekends ago at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point and turned 20 this year, is the longest running that’s still humming.
More new events mean demand is strong. Another way to look at it is that music jams live and die because they can’t attract crowds—most garage bands never leave the building—or lose the “if it’s too loud, you’re too old” battle to neighbors who raise a ruckus about noise.
Recent casualties include an electronic dance music event in Huntington Beach that ran just one year due to a legal dispute, and Blue Water Music Festival in Laguna Beach, which eked out a seat-of-the-pants schedule in 2015—it couldn’t be reached for comment for this article.
Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, which hosted a Christian Music festival and the Pacific Symphony’s summer concerts, among many other music events, shut down last year.
Others are picking up where they left off. OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa will host three of the symphony’s concerts this summer at Pacific Amphitheatre. FivePoint Communities Inc. in Aliso Viejo said in March that it will help open a temporary venue near its Great Park Neighborhoods and run by ex-Irvine Meadows operator and Anaheim House of Blues owner LiveNation in Los Angeles.
Sponsorships
Festivals say a key to fruition is to focus the music. Rich Sherman founded the May 20 to 21 Doheny Blues Festival, which is produced by his Omega Events Inc. in Mission Viejo.
An event spokesperson said Saturday’s lineup was rock and blues, including Joe Walsh and the Led Zeppelin Experience, while Sunday was blues and soul, with performers such as Melissa Etheridge and Chris Isaak.
“You don’t create events that are all things to all people,” said John Reese, chief executive of Synergy Global Entertainment Inc. in Laguna Hills, which will produce five OC music festivals this year.
“The music comes first, and then you create a compelling event” with food and other elements. You come up with a name and tailor everything to specific interests.”
Music festival attendees are often willing to pay for luxe local experiences, and the events draw corporate backing and other benefits.
Blues festival sponsors included Dana Point hotels Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa and DoubleTree Suites, the Coach House concert venue in San Juan Capistrano and Wahoo’s Fish Taco in Santa Ana.
Sponsors of Synergy Global’s OC events—Sabroso, Ohana and Driftwood, all at Doheny; High & Mighty and Blackest of the Black at Oak Canyon Park in Silverado—include Chronic Tacos in Aliso Viejo, Wienerschnitzel in Newport Beach, Fullerton club Slidebar, juice maker Sambazon Inc. in San Clemente, destination marketer Visit Dana Point, footwear maker OluKai in Irvine and Audi of Mission Viejo, all of which help bankroll one or two.
Ticket prices depend on the genre, number of festival days, backstage-pass upgrades and other factors, ranging from about $40 to $250 apiece.
An event can cost $250,000 to $450,000 to produce, Reese said, excluding the cost of the performers.
Because the event infrastructure is already in place, multiday schedules are desirable to bring in more revenue for about the same cost.
Somewhere, Man
The venues, often state or county land, also benefit through rental and parking fees and say they take care to avoid annoying neighbors.
The contract for Funk Fest in June at the state-owned OC Fair & Event Center is for about $92,000, though the final amount depends on services used by the event, which is produced by Curious Entertainment in Santa Ana.
This year’s one-day show sells out at 8,200. Last year’s was at Anaheim Convention Center’s arena and drew 7,000. The first, in 2015, was at Yost Theater in downtown Santa Ana and held 1,500.
Promotions for this year’s festival include a billboard at MainPlace Mall facing southbound I-5 traffic.
Kevin Pearsall, superintendent of state parks at Huntington Beach and Bolsa Chica, said his sites rent for $35,000 a day to events like Country Coastal Jam in August. Parking is $15 per vehicle. Campsites cost $35 to $60 a day.
He gets perhaps a couple of handfuls of complaints after an event from locals—“It’s always about noise”—and said his parks host only about a dozen music events a year “so we don’t inundate the community.”
None of the events play past 9 p.m., and he said that overall it’s a good deal for the area.
“It’s very lucrative for state parks,” and “there’s a lot of money” for tourism providers. “Restaurants, hotels, rental car [agencies], and concessionaires at our parks look forward to these events.”
Pearsall’s Bolsa Chica restaurant lessee, Alicia Whitney’s Prjkt Restaurant Group in Huntington Beach, has four restaurants there that pay about 11% of revenue to the state, he said.
“Events give her some good weekends.”
Reese said he’d like to put on an event at Bolsa Chica and that some events are better held in outlying areas.
Blackest of the Black, which features metal music is “in the middle of nowhere,” and besides, the county-owned land—run by James Event Productions Inc. in Anaheim for events—“gets really spooky at night.”
After the Show
Hotels are keen as any teen to get a slew of music nearby and sometimes directly host concerts (see “Lovin’ Feelings” box below).
Pearsall said “new and high-end hotels” that include Paséa Hotel & Spa, Kimpton Shorebreak, a Hyatt Regency and the Hilton-flagged Waterfront Beach Resort “get a comfortable amount of activity during events.”
Laguna Cliffs Marriott is within walking distance of music festivals at Doheny, and “many attendees will stay the night at our resort,” a spokesperson said. It planned pre- and post-event concerts alongside the blues festival.
Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point has packaged room nights with access to the Sept. 8 to 10 Ohana and the resort’s food and wine event (see related Q&A, page 14).
Synergy Global’s Reese said a charity concert at Ritz-Carlton during last year’s Ohana festival raised $176,000 for San Onofre Foundation, which supports state parks.
Montage Laguna Beach in October hosts Real La La Land—music from the movie—by Laguna Beach Live, a nonprofit that with OC’s Philharmonic Society presents Laguna Beach Music Festival each February, and has a “bluegrass and barbecue” planned for June at Laguna College of Art & Design.
It’s “great music at affordable prices,” said Laguna Beach Live President Lucinda “Cindy” Prewitt.
