Let's Dance The Last Dance

Vans Warped Tour takes final bow this summer

Courtesy Photo Reel Big Fish, one of the signature bands of the Vans Warped Tour, will perform on this summer's final circuit.
Courtesy Photo Reel Big Fish, one of the signature bands of the Vans Warped Tour, will perform on this summer's final circuit.

The Vans Warped Tour -- the music festival that has crossed the country each year since 1995 and is frequently called a "punk rock summer camp" -- is on its last run.

For 24 years, the Warped Tour created spaces for metal, punk and ska fans to meet their idols and mosh together under the hot sun: Each summer, about 70 bands and artists would play in some 40 locations, welcoming hundreds of thousands of tattooed concertgoers clad in band tees and Vans checkered slip-ons. Many musical acts that helped define the late 1990s and early 2000s graced Warped Tour's stages, including Blink-182, Reel Big Fish and Eminem.

FYI

Vans Warped Tour

2018 Dates

July 16 — Burgettstown, Pa.

July 17 — Toronto

July 18 — Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

July 19 — Cincinnati

July 20 — Detroit

July 21 — Tinley Park, Ill.

July 22 — Shakopee, Minn.

July 23 — Milwaukee

July 24 — Noblesville, Ind.

July 25 — Darien Center, N.Y.

July 26 — Scranton, Pa.

July 27 — Mansfield, Mass.

July 28 — Wantagh, N.Y.

July 29 — Columbia, Md.

July 30 — Charlotte, N.C.

July 31 — Atlanta

Aug. 2 — Jacksonville, Fla.

Aug. 3 — Orlando

Aug. 4 — Tampa, Fla.

Aug. 5 — West Palm Beach, Fla.

INFO — vanswarpedtour.com

But recently, the show's popularity has declined, among both bands and concertgoers. Some music festivals are bigger than ever -- Coachella drew more than 200,000 people to the California desert for two days in April -- but the Warped Tour doesn't have the same cultural cachet it once had.

"The die-hard Warped fan was still coming, but the ones for the future seemed to drop off," Kevin Lyman, the festival's founder and longtime producer, says in an email.

He says there is the possibility for other Warped Tour events down the line -- including for the 25th anniversary next summer -- but 2018 will be the final cross-country blowout. "I've done everything I can in this format," he says. "I'm just tired. It's time for someone else to continue or start something new."

Today's popular music festivals often charge a steep price for big-name performers. A three-day general admission pass to Coachella, for example, can run $500, or close to $1,000 for a VIP ticket. The Warped Tour, by comparison, costs about $45, and there is no hierarchy to the ticketing system. Even the bigger bands are never given special treatment. The whole point is accessibility: There are no extra fees to meet artists, and fans can visit bands at their tents or run into them in the crowd during another performance.

"When you monetize a handshake, it changes the whole relationship," Lyman says.

The Warped founder guessed that, of all the tour's performers, Andrew W.K. probably spent the most time with fans. He would "sign for six hours and then go outside and sign some more. I would have to ask him to move since we needed to load the trucks to get to the next city," Lyman says.

"Warped is a festival for the music and for the organizations that travel with it," says Victoria Hudgins, 23, a Warped Tour fan who has attended twice before. "I feel as though the younger crowd these days are more interested in putting their picture from Coachella on Instagram than they are actually going to and enjoying the festival itself. You don't go to Warped for an Instagram picture, you go to Warped to be a part of something so big and so crazy."

NAN What's Up on 07/15/2018

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