Lollapalooza Set-times Announced, World Doesn't End
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on May 19, 2015 4:15PM
"We're stoked about the set-times, maaaaaan!" Photo by Jim Kopeny / Tankboy
In previous years the Lollapalooza set-time announcement would trigger handwringing and endless griping.
"Why did they schedule two of my favorite bands at the same time!?" people would wail in online forums. As the festival has grown ever larger it's also grown more fragmented, which means most of these conflicts are no longer as life threatening to your buzz. In other words, folks have learned to diversify and not take it as a sign of the end times when two bands with similar crowds are scheduled against each other.
This year, unless you'er an EDM-head, we think you'll find few conflicts, and even the dance music head-to-head matches don't seem as suited to creating friction as they do to catering to different tastes. In fact, more than previous years, organizers seem to have done a much better job at curating specific vibes on one end of the grounds versus the other, which may mean it's even easier for folks to pick a single spot and just swivel between two stages and get in almost every act they want to see.
On Friday, for instance, people at the north end of Grant Park can go from Father John Misty to Hot Chip to The War On Drugs to alt-J without moving most of the day. And then they can choose to see the night out with The Weeknd or still make their way to the other end of the field to catch Paul McCartney's set. And that's just a single example. We think if you look at the day-by-day line-ups, this sense of curation seems pretty intentional.
In fact some of this scheduling seems really illuminating—Saturday’s choice of Charli XCX into Death From Above 1979 into Walk The Moon into Tame Impala at the south end of the park seems particularly interesting and unexpected while also oddly satisfying to us.
So what do you think? Are we right? Or do you look at the set-times and still feel anxiety about missing one band over another?