Halftime Fest is gone, leaving open an opportunity for a different fall music festival to step in.
In the spring of 2013, about 17,000 came out to jam to Kendrick Lamar and Steve Aoki at 11Fest. In the spring of 2014, about 19,000 rocked on with Wiz Khalifa at 12Fest.
But in the fall of 2013, only 4,000 showed up to see Hoodie Allen, Riff Raff and The Chainsmokers at Halftime Fest, a subset of the #Fest.
With the lower turnout, Dominic Petrozzi, founder of #Fest and the director of festival operations with Prime Social Group, which puts on the festival, said they are not planning to do another Halftime Fest ever again.
“Halftime as a brand is considered extinguished,” Petrozzi said. “College football wins the Midwest in the fall. It’s just not a feasible business model.”
Petrozzi said their first try at a fall festival with 10Fest in the fall of 2012 was successful, making them think a biannual style of scheduling would work. However, Halftime Fest proved them wrong.
Attendees certainly noticed a difference.
“There were not nearly as many people,” said Autumn Funderburg, a junior studying nutrition of Halftime in comparison to 11Fest. “You still had room to move, which I personally found more preferable because I don’t like people hitting me in the face for no reason.”
Funderburg said she prefers to just have one festival in the spring because it falls in line with the other fests, and a fall festival can be inconvenient with Halloween and homecoming.
Petrozzi said he wasn’t expecting to have the large attendance of the spring festivals but never had the intention to have a smaller fest, according to previous Post articles. Petrozzi said they didn’t profit from Halftime.
Petrozzi added he doesn’t want to tarnish the brand of the #Fests, which he called “the biggest and best college music festival,” with a lesser show in the fall.
“At the end of the day, we have a great thing going in the spring,” he said. “It was a better idea and a better business model to just maintain #Fest in the spring and not introduce anything else.”
Even though Halftime Fest has ended, Petrozzi said Prime Social Group still advocates for more festivals, adding another kind of music festival is exactly what Brandon “DJ B-Funk” Thompson, a past performer at several #Fests, said he wants for Athens.
“I definitely think we need something in the fall,” Thompson said. “We have Halloween, Ohio Brew Week and Boogie on the Bricks, but a lot of those cater to the same styles of music…I want more than just the rock ‘n’ roll, live band type of scenario.”
Thompson said he wants a fall event where a large number of people can go and jam out to dance music, filling a void in the Athens music scene. Thompson said he is actively searching to create something for the fall, but although he might have the knowledge to do so, he doesn’t have the funds to actualize the concept.
“I’d be doing it right now if I had the money,” he said. “If anyone is interested in doing something, let me know…People think they can’t do it or people tell them it won’t work. Dave [Alexander aka DJ Time Traveler] and I started Dave Rave because we love dance music…Look where we are five years later…There’s a need, and people need to get together, and it grows from there.”
@buzzlightmeryl
mg986611@ohio.edu
