In this episode of The What Podcast, the hosts sit down with Sam Summers, the founder of Iowa's Hinterland Festival, for a deep dive into the art (and chaos) of modern festival production. From booking Fall Out Boy in college to launching Hinterland in 2015, Sam walks us through his journey from DIY club shows to managing a 20,000-attendee outdoor event that has weathered literal floods and the fury of the internet.
Sam doesn't shy away from discussing Hinterland's tough 2023, where a perfect storm of record-breaking heat, overcrowding, and poor water logistics led to fan frustration. In response, Sam did the unthinkable: he listened. After combing through every Reddit post and angry comment, he launched the "90-Degree Guarantee": a bold refund policy if temperatures cross a certain threshold, and revamped the entire site design for 2024 to improve shade, water access, and flow. He credits part of this shift to inspiration from C3 Presents, the powerhouse behind festivals like Bonnaroo, and their commitment to behind-the-scenes best practices that Sam sought to emulate.
Listen to the full interview with Sam Summers here, or watch it on YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe to The What Podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
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Inside Hinterland: Sam Summers on Festival Challenges and the 90-Degree Guarantee
I had a boss who used to say, he loved to say, nobody likes to be told their kid has big ears.
At what point did you sit back and say, tell me what's wrong with my kid?
Yep.
I mean, because it has to feel like a child to you, right?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So I took a second. I didn't, you know, dive in the comments because they were coming so quickly.
But I did. After a month, I went back and I read every single comment.
Just because I felt like, you know, obviously it's your kid. It hurts.
Like, you know, like to see those things like, oh man, that's not true.
Like I didn't do that.
And you have to have some you have to be tough as nails to do that, dude.
Hey, everybody. This is the What Podcast.
Welcome to a special edition, a bonus edition of the What Podcast.
I'd say two for one week.
You're getting a two for. Yeah, you're getting a two for.
We interviewed Sam Summers a couple of weeks ago.
Sam is the founder of Hinterland.
If you will remember some weeks ago, I don't remember what episode.
Brian pointed out or brought to us that Hinterland was have it would have is going to offer a 90 degree.
What is it called? Guarantee.
Yeah, I every week we all together just kind of come up with things that that seem to make sense to come up with on the show.
And then we do a little compare notes and then we, you know, and then we just we decide which ones make sense for that week.
And I'm just looking around, just trying to do just that.
And I see. Wait a second. They're giving refunds.
If it's 90 degrees on a festival in the Midwest, which is barely Midwest and Missouri,
Des Moines, Des Moines in August or not, Missouri, Iowa.
Then I'm sorry. We were just talking my bad misery.
That's right. Yeah. Misery. Yeah.
Iowa. And I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard.
So we got through friends of the show and industry people that have helped us out in the past.
And I said, you want to talk to the guy? And we said, yeah.
Yeah. Well, our friend Parker, RooHamm Parker, Parker Reed works for the works for Hinterland.
He said, I can hook you up and and in full transparency at this time of year when things are so busy with Bonnarooo,
we weren't sure exactly what to do with it. We like we wanted to do it because of course we want to do it.
I mean, that's the kind of stuff we love to do.
And then we thought, you know what? It might get too far down the line.
Let's just get the show out there because it's worth doing.
And it was a good it was a fun talk with Sam. Yeah.
What I love about it is what we what we like to do on this show is the sausage making how how festivals are put together.
And Sam, they had some issues with weather, their location because of flooding.
And then also it got hot. They had some issues with water and all these sorts of things.
Anyway, he and I give him full credit for this thought, you know what?
There's people out there who do this very well.
And that would be C3 Presents, which puts on Bonnarooo.
And he reached out to them and said, hey, actually, let me go back.
And he talks about this. He got on Reddit.
He read all the comments about people complaining about this, that and the other.
And that had to hurt. Boy, they hate a lot of red.
It hates him. Oh, my God.
But that had to hurt. So rather than stick his head in the sand or do whatever, he said, well, how do I fix it?
And he reached out to to see three and said, how do I fix it?
And that's what they're trying to do. And that's the more present thing.
Just a tease here before we get to it, how he got into this and the band out of nowhere that catapulted him into this position to be able to be this successful in promoting.
Well, I don't know if it'll shock you, but it'll surprise you because it surprised me.
I think it's a great story.
He's that guy that was booking bands when he was what middle school and then high school and then college.
I mean, he's the classic story.
And then he does this and then stumble on a band that again, I'll let him tell the story.
It's a great. I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it thoroughly. And so it's a bonus episode for you guys.
You can either listen to it this week or, you know, I might if I were you, I might save it for when you're making your eight hour drive from Des Moines, Iowa to Manchester.
Just something to kill some time. But anyway, it was a great interview with Sam and we can't thank him enough for talking to us.
And I look forward to hopefully talking to him again.
I kind of want to follow up and just see how this year's festival goes.
But the 90 degree thing again, it's not just that it's that he offered it, but it's like that week.
If you get there at the festival and it's too hot, you can get a refund.
That's what a crazy concept. So anyway, here we go with Sam.
Thanks to him for talking to us and we hope you guys enjoy it.
Brian, I think by the time we're done with all these shows, we will have had a master's class on how to put on a festival.
So I know it's too bad I'm not 10 years younger and I go to all these festivals like I used to.
We should learn something. Today's guest, Sam Summers. Thanks so much for doing this, Sam. How are you?
I'm good. Yeah. Sorry to be on here.
Calling in from Des Moines, Iowa, correct?
That's right. Yep.
You were going to talk about Hinterland in particular, but you're involved in quite a few things.
And as I alluded to earlier on this show, we love the sausage making.
We love the how to's and the behind the scenes and the comparisons.
So if you don't mind, give us a little bit of your background.
Like I said, Hinterland. And I do want to sort of touch on you.
I think I'm fair to say have kind of a similar story to how I think a lot of people get into this line of work.
You started booking shows while in college. That's right.
Yeah. It always kind of starts as a side hustle here.
And I feel like most people I've talked to, there's always been a band associated with who brought them into the business.
But yeah, that's just it. I started actually in high school doing club shows or actually more VFW style.
Anywhere we could find a room booking heavy music, hardcore and screamo and stuff.
And then as I got into different music styles, started just coming out of my box and meeting artists and asking for their contacts and figuring out their agents.
And then it kind of spreads from there.
So one of the bands that brought me into the business was Fall Out Boy, before they were an unsigned artist and rode the wave with them in the very beginning from small club shows up to big club shows.
Where I'm sitting now, which is Val Air Ballroom. Played them in 2005.
That was our, what I would say kind of launched the business first fleet fully.
Then finished college, hustled in working world for a second here to pay bills and opened up my first club in 2012.
And then ran that for a couple years. Started opening bars. Up down I opened in Des Moines, which actually we opened one up down in Nashville recently.
But spread that out to kind of make it a little bit safer to do the concerts.
Have some different, diversify I guess.
And then I took a stab at doing the festival in 2015.
And so this will be our 10th year.
I'm going into it this year. Our 10th year. 11th year, 10th festival I guess.
I don't want to, Sam, I don't want to gloss over the Fall Out Boy aspect of it because that's certainly an interesting pivot point of this story.
But what is it about, maybe it's closer to our generation, I don't know Barry you can speak this to, but maybe if it crosses over at all.
The screamo, heavy, loud stuff.
And it still seems to me I have a lot of friends that have kids that are getting into their mid teens and laters that are into this too.
And I remember this from 20, 25 years ago. It was a flash in my pan of my life of things I paid attention to.
Why is that so popular amongst very young people for a small amount of time? What do you think that is?
Let me offer my take. Because I'm 61, I'm the old guy in the room.
And it was the same when I was, it's because your parents hate it.
Because it's just so goddamn loud. Exactly.
Yeah, probably a little bit of, you know, the same things that make us get into this sick industry made us like, you know, emotional music as well.
So yeah, it's passionate. It's emotional. If you can't hear it on the radio, you're the odd kid at school, which is great.
And your parents hate it.
I guess I guess I used to go to some small clubs and doing the exact same thing you're talking about.
But Fallout Boy getting on your radar at that time. I mean, they were just up and coming.
How did that come together? Just at a show one day? Or I mean, or is your talent eye that strong?
No, I mean, honestly, like it's that doesn't that doesn't happen again. Right.
Like that's the only time I've been part of an artist like that. Exactly. Yeah.
I got a split fueled by ramen CD that they were given out at Hot Topic.
It was less than Jake and Fallout Boy.
And my friends and I got obsessed with it so much that we were, you know, burning copies of the split for other people to show them the artist.
And we all went to see him in Iowa City. They opened for this hardcore band Keepsake.
And there was like 10 people there. And we thought they were massive.
We you know, because we knew the song, you know, Dead on Arrival or whatever was on that split.
And and so we thought they were massive. And we showed up when there was like 10 people there.
They were opening for this hardcore band, but they were really cool.
They came out, met everybody and talked to them.
And I was like, hey, I do club shows for hardcore bands.
And it just turns out that Pete was in a hardcore band, Armand Angeles, with a couple of other members.
And and so we exchanged email addresses or AIM, I guess it was at the time.
And he's like, yeah, let's book me in Des Moines.
And, you know, they didn't have an agent at the time. And so we booked it.
I had to find a venue and, you know, because I was doing mostly DIY spaces and they needed to be in a real club.
So we put them at this place, Vaudeville Muse in 2003 and put on a bunch of local bands.
And it was a fun, fun time.
You know, this year still in high school or is this later college?
That was my first year of college. OK.
So what was it in high school that made you think you can do this?
I was really into selling things as a kid, you know, just all sorts of things.
I mean, I would, you know, my grandpa was a farmer and I would go pick up hedge apples or whatever and sell them door to door.
And, you know, eventually that turned into just hustling everything, candy on the bus.
And when I found out that, you know, what I liked, which was heavy music, was something that I could actually book and potentially make a business out of it.
You know, I was really into that idea.
And I didn't I didn't play any instruments.
I don't have the patience for that, but I knew that I could figure out the business.
And and so, you know, learned from some other DIY folks how to do that.
And, you know, at the beginning, it's a one man shop.
You're just you're you're printing flyers, which are, you know, just designing yourself and then selling tickets that you've printed on Word, you know.
And and then, you know, figuring out the business aspect of it, you know, like the taxes and all that, how to put together a business.
Fortunately, my girlfriend's dad was an attorney, so he helped me put together everything I needed to get legit early.
So that's usually the stuff that you would put off until it was a major legal problem.
Yes, somebody knocks on your door. Some guy in a suit.
That's right. Yeah. I, you know, he was a business attorney and was just like, yeah, here, do this.
And so I was fortunate. But yeah, normally, I think you grind it out a bit until you actually, you know, make some money because I'm looking at I save all my stuff.
So I've got these old settlements where it's just scribbles on the back of the front page of the contract.
You know, and it's like seventeen dollars profit.
And, you know, but but the thing is, in the beginning, they all had to be profit or I couldn't do them.
So, you know, I worked at Pizza Hut at the time, went to college and didn't have a whole lot of money.
So needed to make those seventeen dollars. Couldn't be a losing thing.
You remember your first losing show. That's for sure.
I want to two things real quick. And I meant to say in the intro, I saw, you know, obviously reading about you and your background.
And I love the description of you as a serial entrepreneur, which I think you just proved.
Does that does that descriptor fit? Does that work for you?
It I think it is. Yeah, it's definitely difficult for me to not think through the business aspect of everything, you know, which can be a blessing and a curse.
You know, like it's tough for me to go on a walk without thinking, you know, much about how something, you know, could be a business.
And it's that's from a young age. I think I, you know, my family was very much into that, too.
Just having kind of side hustles and grinding it out.
You know, so, yeah, I think that's accurate.
And one more thing you mentioned earlier, and I wrote it down.
You said it's safer. You bought a bar because it's safer to do concerts.
I assume you mean by diversifying, you're not putting all of your eggs into, you know, a show that totally bombs and you lose everything.
Right. Is that what you meant? Yeah, it's it's for me, the bar is like it's a, you know.
So I was opening bars that weren't in venues, so it was completely disconnected from the work I was doing and and shows.
And so, you know, it it felt a lot safer to open up a bar.
And I still feel that, you know, opening a bar is a as long as you're opening something that you feel authentic about is a is a easy task.
I want to stay with the heart. Yeah. Sorry about that, Sam.
I want to stay as chronological as possible here.
So your fallout boy starts to become a name.
And and I'm assuming to a certain degree that puts you on a map.
It might be a small map that not many people are looking at, but it puts you on a map that leads to your the first fleet concert.
That's right. And can you can you can you walk us through that just as briefly or as long as you'd like to as to how what what first fleet concerts?
What because that precedes the Hinterland Festival, which we're eventually getting to, if you would speak into that.
Yeah. So, you know, that how that kind of played out was, you know, fallout boy got an agent, that agent, which was APA at the time, Craig Newman, you know, and then that agent represented artists like Rufio or Alastair.
You know, some of these drive through bands, pop punk stuff that I was I understood.
I knew how to book. And then, you know, those those bands would take out bands on other agencies.
So, you know, fallout boy took out Motion City Soundtrack, who was represented by William Morris, you know, so made a contact over there.
I think it was, you know, Ron Opaleski, who's still pretty good friends with and and and then it just kind of spreads.
And, you know, as you know, it's a relationship game and you hear that a lot where you take care of those relationships.
And there's nobody else in Iowa doing it at the time, you know.
So the agents need me as much as I need them.
And we we learned how to do good business and, you know, find rooms.
And in the beginning, we were real scrappy, right?
We didn't have, you know, being that there's no promoters here, there weren't any venues either.
So we had bars that had stages.
And, you know, House of Bricks was a bar with a stage that, you know, eventually moved and turned into a real venue.
And I'd say that was kind of my launching point for First Fleet.
You know, when they actually got a real venue and I was able to book these 300 cap shows, you know, if I look back at kind of our early stuff and our bread and butter, it was mostly stuff booked into 300 300 cap.
I enjoy it. I still really enjoy it. We still book those shows.
But that's, you know, as you know, most bands come out of that world.
They played that on the way up. They sure hope to anyway.
Both the bands I enjoy.
And and so it was, you know, we were booking a lot of our favorites in these little tiny clubs, you know, Panic at the Disco for for 100 bucks or Mike and Mokko Romance, you know, with hardcore bands opening another hundred dollar contract.
And you're killing the emo. You're killing the lover.
I mean, I was I was I was all in on emo.
I mean, I I you know, I owned eyeliner.
I did not wear eyeliner.
I don't know if I believe you.
I mean, honestly, if I figure out how to put it on right, it looks good.
I would have. But, you know, makes it makes it pop.
That's right.
You know, and I've got great eyelashes, I've been told.
So I just have to you and me both.
You and me both.
I got to get that out again.
But I'm a guy liner at the time.
My my screen name when I was communicating with Pete Wentz on his was broke Halo.
Oh, seven. Mine was ex-metrosexual ex.
Oh, man. That's perfect.
You guys were emo kids.
It was it was it was it was an era.
So but yeah, then, you know, for the next five years, I mean, I went between,
you know, well, I was at college.
That was a good safety net.
I recommend college for nothing other than it allows you to take out loans that let you start a business comfortably, you know, somewhat kind of a problem in the American.
It would be if I.
Yeah, overall, but it can be used to your advantage.
It can be.
It can be. And I credit college because I think like I mean, I think I figured something out.
I don't know that it would have been music related.
But I think it just gave me like a nice safety net.
And I was OK in school. You know, not great.
I I was just kind of switching around with whatever would work with my schedule for booking shows.
And then out of college, graduated in four years.
And I went and I worked at a casino deal in Blackjack from two a.m.
to 10 a.m. And then I would book concerts during the day.
And we had a nine p.m. curfew at our in Des Moines for all ages shows.
So I get done with my shows at nine, go to sleep for four or five hours and then and then go to work two a.m.
to 10 a.m. deal in Blackjack.
So you've got casinos in Iowa.
Yeah, we've got a racetrack.
Oh, OK. And with with the poker with the poker room, which was another little hustle in college.
But a lot of online poker when you're Midwest ahead of the curve on that one.
Go ahead. Sorry, Barry. It's all right.
When you're doing all this, are you the type that has to do everything by yourself or are you the type that will go to other people for advice?
You like to delegate, do it all, a little bow.
Like it's because I know I have a friend who paid his way through college by getting student loans,
making T-shirts and selling them in like Spin magazine and then pay off his student loans and do it all over again.
Yeah, he now owns restaurants and does pretty well.
But he has to do he's got to pull every nail, put every board down and nobody can help.
And he doesn't care how long it takes.
What type are you?
I used to be that way and I am not that way now.
Or it's just I can't be.
I have to remove myself from the situation so others can do their job.
You know, but back then I had to wear all the hats because there was no money to go around.
Right. You know, we were doing eight dollar shows, eight in advance, 10 day of.
And then we, you know, we would, you know, I just couldn't afford to for on a hundred hundred person show have a full team.
So it had to be friends that really enjoyed, you know, music who wanted to come for free that would, you know, work for whatever we paid an hour.
And and then then we as we started to scale, then we started getting help, you know,
first employee and then that first employee wears a million hats too.
And and then you get to the point where it's spread out, where you've got departments.
And yeah, not to fast forward too much, but that's where you start to, you know, be able to spread out into other businesses.
You know, if you're fully engulfed in one doing everything you can't.
But I do think there's some value in it.
I remember Bill Graham in his in his early years when he had to know how to do every single job, you know,
so that he knew if people were doing their job right, you know.
So I think there's there's some value in that.
I think early on that was the case for me.
You know, I know enough about marketing to know general stuff.
But, you know, those those fields have grown so much and, you know, was, you know, different social media taking off.
Like, I can't begin to know everyone's job anymore.
So how do you get from one hundred dollar shows to Hinterland?
So we we started.
Let's see. What was it? Two thousand.
Let's see. Two thousand seven.
You know, a friend of mine opened up a club downtown Des Moines, which was nine hundred cat called People's Court.
And because it was he owned a brand called People's and it was on Court Avenue.
And so we nine hundred was a great number for me.
We could actually make some money on shows, you know, if they were selling out.
And I was pretty selective on the shows I was doing.
Most of them were were cash flowing and that that there was able to I remember looking at it and looking at the numbers and like, OK, I can add this up to what looks like a salary.
I think I'm comfortable here to leave my job, which at that time I moved over to a bank.
Wells Fargo is working, you know, during the day.
I did the math with able to jump out, do this full time and it and then 2009 hit and that changed everything.
Changed a lot. Yeah.
It's like I remember calling agents in desperation and, you know, calling other promoters.
You do this thing when you're a promoter, especially when you're an independent.
You kind of call other people like, how are shows going for you?
Now I know what that means.
That means the shows are not going well for them.
They're not just catching up.
They're not just wondering how your mother is.
Yeah. Yeah. Just cut the bullshit.
So we all know we all know you're struggling over there.
But yeah, that's that was a nice part about, you know, the independent world is like everybody was an open book.
We would just share info and, you know, I still have a lot of those relationships like, you know, Mark Lebowitz in Omaha.
Yeah, it was Ryan Lehmann in Arizona.
I was wondering if you knew Chris Cobb in Nashville.
He said you opened.
Yeah. Yeah. I met him at a conference.
Yeah, he's cool. Yeah.
Yeah, I've got Chris Cobb's name written down on here as not knowing you at all.
And as much as I can do is as a LinkedIn.
It's like I think there's a lot of similarities here between Chris and Sam.
And I bet there's a version of you guys in every little area of of hipness.
If that's a way I can put it, where there might be some shows and there might be a festival potentially.
So, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
Chris is a Camp Nut Butter former member.
He's been in and he camped with us a couple of years at Bonnarooo.
So that's how we know Chris and through the shows he's done here.
And anyway, I figured you would know him.
If you didn't, you should know.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And he owns clubs and I think he's yeah, just he's really in Kansas City for a minute.
Yeah. The Truman.
Yeah. Closer to your side of the country.
So you weather oh nine, you get into 10, 11, you're on your way marching to your first year of 15.
Would you speak to that?
How that comes together?
Hinterland into 2015.
Yeah. So, you know, at that time, I was just I looked at what was doing really well in Des Moines.
And what I enjoyed and that was mostly Americana folk type stuff at the time.
You know, I was doing like turnpike troubadours or like Charlie Crockett or.
Mumford and Sons had, you know, skyrocketed in popularity.
So that music was really popular at the time.
Oh, it was it was crazy.
And and so, you know, put together what I was telling myself was just going to be a two day concert that I was going to, you know, curate all day long.
And then I added camping and and like when I'm planning it out and and then our first year, we quickly realized it was more than just a concert when you when you figure out the kind of infrastructure and, you know, machines and, you know, you're building it from scratch.
And so originally we had it scheduled for downtown Des Moines in this park called Water Works Park.
1500 acre green space, which also happened to be low lying land.
Did you find that out the hard way?
I found that out the hard way.
And so it was we were in August, though, and it doesn't flood in August.
Right. You know, except for every 500 years.
Except for when you put a festival.
You plan a festival.
I know. And so it was it's kind of crazy how it happened.
When I think back to it, it was all set up.
First of all, we had no idea what we were doing.
We were we were doing the best job we could.
And there was also small like we were it was like 300 people.
Our headliners were Brandi Carlisle.
Let's see.
Edward Sharp and Old Crow and Brandy Carlisle played and a few others.
And and so we had it all set up, grid out, you know, stage.
Well, it's raining constantly.
And at this point, it's not flooded, but it's soggy.
And this is a stilt based field because it's, you know, it's made to flood.
It's Des Moines Waterworks.
And so, you know, I remember the stage pulls up and truck drivers will tell you,
you know, what they you know what you need to hear.
And and so he pulls up and he said, I'm not putting my stage on that.
And and I and I yoga and I at that point, I had already had a backup.
So we just had to get into execution mode, which was for us just kind of set up
this war room in the office conference room, get all the teams that, you know,
people that were setting up camping, people that were setting up, you know,
our marketer marketing person, you know, just general ops people.
We got this room and we started just thinking about what we're going to do.
And and, you know, I drove down, I said, OK, stage, go this way.
First, I jumped in machinery to get it to high land, you know,
so that we didn't have insurance claims that we didn't need to.
And so learn to drive a bunch of that stuff.
And then I I just started shipping stuff down to St.
Charles, which is 25 minutes south.
And I was on the phone constantly just communicating with agents, you know,
letting them know that I had a cancellation insurance, which was going to, you know,
save me ultimately.
And we we got everybody down there.
It was it was 12 bands because we only do one stage.
It was eight one day and four the other.
And we refunded all the camping and refunded parking.
And then I bought shuttles to take everybody down there for free.
And and then it all worked out.
And I remember Edward Sharp was on stage the first night and, you know,
between sets said something like, you know,
never would have guessed that this wasn't supposed to be here.
And, you know, for me, it was a really emotional year.
I remember, you know, I'm not I'm definitely like I'm an emotional person,
but not usually outwardly in public.
And I pulled everybody together and just like, you know, thanked everybody and like
fold them how how we couldn't have pulled it off without them.
And that most of that key group is still with us and, you know, to your 10.
But it worked, you know, event cancellation, like I said, you know, saved me the insurance.
It made me it made it possible for me to to produce the festival that I needed to
produce, you know, for our first year and kind of save it.
So this is making my head spin a little bit.
So you you did this pivot in a day like, you know, during that same week.
Right. And with with majority of the same artist 30 miles away in St.
Charles, all like that.
We didn't lose any artists.
We made the call on Wednesday and it was a Friday, Saturday festival, which,
you know, knowing what Wednesday were, were basically all set up.
Right. Like, you know, maybe we're doing sound checks and stuff this year.
You know, just waiting for for artists to show up.
So the idea that we we were able to do that on Wednesdays.
Yeah, it is crazy.
Don't remember a lot of the details.
It was just a promo response.
Yeah, that's that's that's wild to hear.
And it feels like the story within there.
And we never did it again.
That's kind of it.
It's this is what we love because Moon River, which we had in Chattanooga,
has similar type stories.
Drew Holcomb. Yeah.
And Drew told us he and Ellie their first year in Memphis.
I think he's I don't remember the exact number, but he was like,
we thought we bought enough water.
They bought enough water for like an hour.
Had to go find somebody.
And then I think their ticket prices were it wasn't an even dollar.
And so they had no quarters.
So Ellie realized there was a laundromat across the river.
And so they bought all the quarters they could.
Those kinds of things people don't think about.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, it's like every small business, right?
Like you there's not a book that tells you how to do the exact business that
you've started.
And granted, there are other festivals, you know,
but but when you in your mind, you're starting a festival that you're going to
pretend is a concert.
You know, you haven't really thought through all those things.
So like that.
So you're you're you're in Des Moines and Iowa,
which everybody's most people have at least heard of Des Moines.
I would say most people probably are not that familiar with Iowa.
I did write down you said somewhere no one else is doing it,
whatever it was at that point is are you an Iowa guy?
And if you are, which you're shaking your head, I guess you are.
Did you notice that hole in the market?
And that's why you this is this is where you were going to go.
And then you we know why you were in St.
Charles. It worked out to keep it in St.
Charles, it sounds like the hinterland that is.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm I got born and raised here.
I grew up in the Des Moines area.
And yeah, I mean, it was we didn't have we had a community style festival.
And I wanted to do one, you know, more like the curated.
I'd seen this DVD where it was like this train thing across the country
where Mumford and Edward Sharp and Old Crow played.
There was one other artist, but they basically they traveled across the country.
And then my mentor here in Des Moines also, he produced, you know,
the early Grateful Dead shows, 73, 74, Wallace Sound shows in Des Moines.
And he's a close friend of mine.
And so, you know, early 80s, there was a lot of these single stage
type festivals that happened that were super DIY and they were all over the place.
You know, I'm learning now.
But his here, his was called Iowa Jam.
And there was a jam everywhere, you know, all these jams everywhere.
We had a Coie Jam here, River Jam down on the river down here.
And then there was so so, you know, like that Bill Graham was the national partner
for Steve White here, who was my mentor and just kind of studying what was going on then.
And I really liked all the pictures and stuff from those concerts.
And I think, you know, they were there was a certain sense of DIY because they didn't have these like
elaborate stages, right. They were building out scaffolding and, you know, especially like early 70s.
And then their roofs. So Steve, he actually invented the first roof for for like cover and toured it with a bunch of bands.
And I actually have that in my garage here.
But it was, you know, this way of touring or way of like producing shows outdoors was, yes, kind of new.
So back then. And I just really liked how all that stuff worked.
And so I tried to build it like that because it, you know, made me happy.
So part of the reason that we're talking to you, you kind of came on our radar.
Obviously, we know we knew about Hinterland and would see the lineup.
But I want to get into this 90 degree.
What do you call it? Program that 90 degree guarantee guarantee.
And I and I think we kind of have progressed to this because this is a new thing.
And I want to hear you explain it.
But I also part of the reason I asked you earlier, are you the, you know, got to do it all yourself kind of guy?
Or you the guy that got to go learn is I think and correct me if I'm wrong, you sort of reached out to some other people, some folks at Bonnarooo that run Bonnarooo, right?
And said, well, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
What did you what did you say? And how did you?
Yeah, I mean, I, I went down to I went down to ACL actually after Hinterland this year and just start because I didn't go to a lot of festivals.
I knew what I didn't like about festivals, and that was kind of running around and, you know, going to multiple stages and all that.
And so my only experience is work tour as a kid.
But so so I wanted to do single stage where everybody's like kind of chillin watching the same thing.
So not going to a lot of festivals, I didn't really, you know, know some of the processes that happened.
And I also didn't want to be too influenced by another, you know, thing happening or, you know, in my mind, I was like, I'm going to do what feels right to me here and build it out.
Going to ACL this year after Hinterland was amazing.
Just kind of seeing their processes, understanding how like, you know, when they come to like C3, like they understand best practices.
You know, they do these they do all these things that all their festivals, they understand how to get people around the right ways.
The correct ratios.
Our portfolio is.
Oh, I mean, yeah, they're the best.
Not only do they produce like amazing festivals, you know, with creation and stuff, but just like from an operation standpoint, when you when you kind of see the back of house, it's just yeah, it's very impressive.
And so took a lot of notes, a lot of photos of different equipment, you know, reached out to a lot of companies that, you know, are in these different festivals.
And Coachella is the same.
I go to Coachella now, too, because they're, you know, I can see how great companies do it and just taking notes.
And that's how, you know, we, you know, are working to get, you know, where we want to be.
Well, let's go backwards here real quick.
So what led to and I only have like just what I could quickly Google as far as the weather, the concession issues, water availability issues, anything else you want to touch on from was it I guess it was just the 20, the 24.
Overcrowding.
And just speak to that, that what's leading up to where we jumped with the 90.
Absolutely. Yep.
So, yeah, so 2024, you know, so I would say we turned a corner in 2021 right back from COVID our first year back from COVID had both Tyler Childers on one of the nights one of his like two headline plays blew out on the on sale.
This is with carrying just about the same lineup from 2020.
I, we basically picked up 2020 moved it to 2021 and I realized that everybody did that.
You know, but at the time that was an insane thing like just like everybody picking up everything and moving it to the next year.
But yeah, so we that year just, I remember we put on 2020 and didn't sell that well.
Honestly, I had like, you know, a great lineup in of Monsters and Men, Tyler Childers, and I forget who our Sunday headliner was but didn't didn't go up super strong and then, you know, with that we announced it and then COVID happened right after we announced took it down.
And then when we put it back up on sale, it just it blew out.
People were ready much like most of the festivals.
Then, you know, so after that that's when we turned a corner and like 2024 last year.
We had no headline, and this is coming after a year was that headlined.
And Zach Bryan, you know, so also another big year.
But last year was Noah Hozier Vampire Weekend and, you know, blew out.
And then also like the early day we had chapel.
I'd say you had chapel.
Yeah.
But when we booked it, yeah, you were one of the festivals.
I know you were one of the ones that had chapel when it was a club show and that changes everything last year.
It's the anomaly here, but go ahead.
I'm sorry.
It was.
Yeah, we could.
Yeah, that is that is something we could talk about for a long time.
Yeah.
How it changed everything.
But it was it's a big year, you know, different fans, too.
Right.
So like 30 percent of our fans were from Iowa, meaning 70 percent were from out of town, you know, younger crowd.
And yeah, just just different than we've had in the past.
Right. A slightly different demo.
I think we we didn't do our best job communicating last year and, you know, and then also execution on the ground was not our best.
Right.
And so, you know, some of the things that we heard is that, you know, felt full, you know, or actually no oversold.
Right.
Right. And, you know, people were worried about their access to water and it was hot.
Right. Like it was hot for Iowa, which in the summer is super hot.
And it was full sun, like 97 degrees every day, you know, full humidity and not a lot of shade.
And so like no like tree wise.
And so being that we are a single day festival and the lineup is stacked, you know, from start to finish last year, Chapel Play to 2 p.m.
We were scanning our entire crowd every single day, 90 percent by 2 p.m.
And so everybody's on site by 2 p.m.
Either, you know, waiting and we're just we're single stage.
Right. So they're coming.
They're getting on the hill and then they're waiting in that area with the sun beating down.
And so it was kind of like, you know, the when everybody is tuned in to one stage and they're waiting for the artists they want, they're not moving, which is when people do start moving, they're kind of stepping in other people's space.
And so we felt, you know, while our our our capacity, we're well within like what is considered a legal capacity for the folks we had, you know, about 20,000 people on site.
So site allows for like 38,000.
But what when you have people that are not moving and and then you also have a hill where people are putting their stuff and they're going down to the G.A.
area. Right. You know, they're essentially taking up more space.
And so we had to do some calculations, you know, figuring out what we're going to allow for space for, you know, folks on the hill versus, you know, the people that are right up against the stage versus people that are maybe behind on flat ground, but behind the stage.
So just a lot of considerations and then, you know, placement of water.
Where where, you know, we had stuff set up.
It's like right when you walk in the gates, you've got our main water station.
So, you know, folks are waiting to get in the gates.
They've waited to park and then they walk in to 100 degree weather.
And now they're waiting to get water.
And it's getting old.
Yeah, no, not acceptable.
And, you know, they were, you know, rightfully so.
So it was, you know, a lot of folks not happy with their experience last year.
And so we looked at that and, you know, relentlessly put together a plan.
I mean, we moved our site to, you know, a which was kind of already going.
We just sped it up, moved our site, added more footprint, doubled our footprint.
But what I learned at ACL and also like Coachella and all these festivals is, you know,
the concourse area is key and having a lot of area where people can leave
and go do stuff in these different areas to kind of spread them out.
And that's not something that we had a lot of in our space.
We had plenty of space for folks, you know, if they're watching the show,
but there's nowhere to really escape.
And so it was, you know, it was a big enough lobby.
And we, since we were treating it like a concert, you know, it's there was not,
you know, a big enough lobby, basically.
Crowd control is a simple thing to say, but that's what it sounds like was the biggest issue.
At what point, Sam, I had a boss who used to say he'd love to say
nobody likes to be told their kid has big ears.
With my kid. Yep. I mean, because it has to feel like a child to you, right?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I.
So I took a second.
I didn't, you know, dive in the comments because they were coming so quickly.
But I did. After a month, I went back and I read every single comment
just because I felt like, you know, obviously, it's your kid. It hurts.
Like, you know, like to see those things like, oh, man, that's not true.
Like, I didn't do that. And.
You have to have some you have to be tough as nails to do that, dude.
Well, but I needed to figure it out. I told myself I needed to know, like, be able to.
I felt like I was in the right frame of mind where I could read that and understand
what was going on, because we can guess, you know, and we I mean, not guess.
Like, we have a pretty good idea of what we can fix.
But I think it was important for me to go see everything.
And then, you know, I engaged this company here that is doing.
I, you know, they're going to do this like
basically figure out more information from our customers, you know,
by through interviews and that sort of stuff like on site advance
and work on ways that we can kind of improve the experience and like, you know,
and also just I mean, I go to Universal Studios, I go, you know, Iowa State home games
and figure out what it is about those places that, you know, that they do so great.
Right. Like music. I've named the ones that do great.
Right. Just pick a C3 festival.
But understanding what makes Universal Universal, what makes, you know,
go into a Iowa State home football game, a great experience and its consistency.
And and so and then understanding their their fan and Universal
is really great at that. And so, you know, I think that's what I'm I'm working on
figuring out how we can be more like that. You know, so.
So how do you come up with 90 90 degree guarantee?
That's I mean, festivals are hot. You can't control the weather.
Yeah. And real fast. We're talking about right.
Let me remember early August for early August. Yeah.
Yeah. It's not hot as hell in Iowa in August.
Like it's so hot here and we're only like 500 miles away.
You're 800 miles from you.
The whole theory of it is like and this has been from the beginning is like
I want folks to be at the festival that want to be at the festival.
Just to give them an out in case it just like a parachute. I'm done.
I don't want to do this. Yes.
And and so like from the beginning, like we would announce we wouldn't put any tickets on sale
until we had full lineup out there because I wanted happy customers
that wanted to be there because they purchased the ticket for this.
They can't they can't say like, you know, whatever.
So I I we would when we looked at it, it was just an opportunity for us to one
acknowledge, you know, climate change. Right.
And and its impact with like our average temperature is 82, I believe,
at that that time of the year at specific dates.
Lucky you guys. That's great. That in a minute. Yeah.
Yeah. We started to in August. Yeah.
That's morning. You're humid, too, right?
Like, oh, my God. You get all of that.
Yeah. Well, so so it it does a few things, right.
It allows folks the out.
It reminds folks that are coming that you have the opportunity.
It must be hot. Right.
So if you have the opportunity to return your ticket because on the grounds
that it's too hot and it must be hot, it gives us an opportunity to talk about what,
you know, you can wear what you can make sure you hydrate.
Maybe they they think about how going to barricade.
You know, they like pace themselves, that sort of stuff.
And not to say anything that happened.
This was was anybody's fault, you know, in previous years.
It's just I think that an educated fan that is going to a multi day
camping festival is going to fare better than someone who, you know,
expects to just pull up and see the artists they love.
Festivals are not for everyone. No, no.
You know, it acknowledges.
I mean, it basically says we know it's going to be hot.
So I get it.
And it you know, so so that was an important one for us.
And then just building that like trust back with the fan.
You know, I mentioned our first year moving one of the other parts when we sat in that room,
you know, we threw on Facebook Live, we did Reddit AMAs, we did.
We developed an email real person at Hentreland.
So folks knew like, you know, we there's a person over here answering your questions.
And I made it, you know, we're going to answer everything.
And, you know, as you grow, there's some questions you don't answer, can't answer.
And I felt like we had gotten to the point where we weren't as transparent anymore.
And it's something that I feel I'm up for the task to try to get back to, you know, be more transparent.
And, you know, I don't want to throw industry under the bus or anything.
That's not my goal. But I want to be I want my fan to respect my product
and believe that I'm giving them the product that they're buying.
And I think our industry, I think we can do some more work.
And if you look at like, I look at I look at industries that are like not great, you know,
like from a fan experience, you know, flying, you know, and I just concerts should not be that.
Like you should have you should you should be able to make decisions and go if you're if you want to go get out,
you know, if you don't want to go and and then, you know,
guaranteeing the product is something pretty common, you know, when people are selling things like, you know,
it's no different than a return policy.
And I know that is not not something that we typically do like outwardly.
We don't talk about that.
But I mean, last year, anytime people were hit us up for returns on tickets, like we do it.
We we want people to be there that want to be there.
And it's because it just it just makes everything a lot easier and better long term.
One thing I mean, we obviously we our show is is based primarily on Bonnarooo.
And this is exactly we've we've said it since we started in twenty eighteen that what we love is the transparency.
You know, they don't always get it right.
But they know we've had some really bad Bonnarooo days, you know, because of infrastructure, because of a crowd, because of weather, all these things.
They they they listen.
And the other thing to what you said, you want people to be happy while they're there.
But the other thing I assume is you want them to come back.
And if they don't have a good experience this year, they're not coming back next year.
They're likely right. That's right.
Yeah, that's why we also introduced another, you know, for for for our premium areas this year.
Like, you know, if you if you get on site and you're not enjoying it, you don't you don't feel that it is, you know, the experience that you, you know, you paid three acts or four acts for that you can you can return that or or, you know, move down to a different thing.
I think it's we, you know, I think that about Bonnarooo, too.
Right. Like, I think that that is a festival that is very transparent.
Everybody in the beginning is as I feel most festivals are transparent to be getting.
It's hard to maintain that through 15, 20 years.
And I think that's why we introduced Bonnarooo just by watching, you know, and all their changes to camping and, you know, like listening to fans and that sort of stuff.
It just feels like they're very in touch with who they are.
And, you know, it's definitely what I aspire to be.
I mean, we look at their stuff every year, you know, like they're there's no one that does camping better.
So, well, Sam, you've been very generous for your time.
I assume. But I certainly have one more I want to get to here.
And it just came to me earlier and has nothing to do with been talking about.
But I'm glad I thought of it. And I got it from your Des Moines Register, the paper of record there.
The headline was I just jotted it something these artists crossovers with Hinterland from for Lollapalooza.
And I'm not trying to pick on you.
I'm just meaning from a generalized festival circuit this year, one of the biggest complaints on all socials is these what feel like mostly rinse and repeat festival lineups.
And we've talked about on this show a lot. I think that the undercard is rinsed and repeated every single year.
And most people just don't pay attention to that. This year, it seems to be a lot of the headliners.
It doesn't seem to be it is. And there's 20 that crossover from Hinter to Lollapalooza.
And that only reason I know that just because I saw that an hour ago.
Well, your thoughts on on on that what seems to be a newer phenomenon in the booking curation of festivals across the country?
Yeah, I agree. But it's like surprising because when you to me, like when I booked the festival lineup this year,
you're keeping it like, oh, man, I'm going to have this going to be so unique, you know, and then they start to pop up.
You're like, wait, it's not everybody. But Tyler and and then but like, you know, at least it's Tyler and not something terrible.
I mean, there's a lot of really good names out there. But I agree with the criticism after I saw what it was, whatever it is out in San Francisco.
I saw and I was like, Jesus Christ, it's all over the country. Why are we doing this?
I'm sorry. Go ahead. I know we all have to go. But let me ask along those lines.
Yeah. Who's who is supposed to raise their hand and say, I don't want Tyler.
I don't want Tyler or is Tyler people supposed to say we're already booked in 19 other festivals?
Do you are you sure you want? I mean, how does that even that one is that one's tough?
I don't know. I don't think anybody's going to say no, Tyler.
You know, just like, you know, I wouldn't suggest that.
Yeah. And so, you know, I think what we what it comes down to is just, you know, people being on cycle.
And to me, if this is a massive year for European festivals, if you look at European festivals, I wish I was in Europe all summer.
You know, because like, you know, between Charlie and Chapel and, you know, some of these other folks, it just it really comes down to who's available in the U.S.
You know, and we all got great options.
But I think like it's it's yes, it comes down to who's available, you know, and undercard I think was easier this year.
Next year, it'll be, you know, as I'm starting to see what's coming up and who's going to be on cycle with record to be a lot of options.
But, you know, to talk about geographically, there's there's going to be a lot of crossover between Lala and Hinterland.
And that's because it's just proximity. Exactly.
You can kind of connect them in as direct flights.
And when we when we started, we were more Americana and country.
And so crossover was a lot less. And now it's the other way.
Because the first thing in our an agent will do, you know, when they get an offer for, you know, a festival for Hinterland or Lala, is they're going to hit up the other festival, you know, to get the offer to go with it so they can make the weekend.
And so that's really how it happens.
It's it's I I suspect it's not a lot of, you know, folks talking to each other on our side of it.
It's more the agents being, you know, this is what we have.
I think we've we've sort of learned that there was a, you know, a plethora of festivals a couple of three years ago, and there are fewer and fewer.
So the same fan is, you know, looking at Hinterland isn't going to care that there are the same lineups at Govball.
Yeah, you know, yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think, you know, for the smaller festivals, like, I think you really have to differentiate yourself from the top line.
I think that's how we got to where we are now is is really going heavy on and trying to be a little bit different on the top line.
There's some there's some festivals out there, though, that are, you know, doing a great job differentiating themselves.
You know, you know, like, I think Govball, I'm not Govball, what's the one in D.C. at Merriweather?
I'm not going to remember, but I know we've got that, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a good one.
And there's one, I believe, in Utah, too. That's doing great.
So, yeah.
So, again, you know, it all relates.
This is how you put on a festival.
Everybody thinks all I got to do is book a band and everybody will come and it'll be awesome.
Yeah, I like a little more to it.
I like his, you know, 20 years later, he can be self deprecating and use the term guy liner with the eyeliner.
I was like, I like this guy more and more.
Yeah. What was he said? I have it.
I don't wear it. Yeah, I don't remember.
But something tells me about 15, 20 years ago, a guy like him and a guy like me, we would not have got along well.
We would not have. But these days, now I now I feel confident that we can.
We all grow up.
I know. We're about the same age.
That's a lot of fun.
So there you go.
Thanks. Once again, a bonus episode, a twofer.
We will be back next week.
And guys, there's some corner right around the corner.
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