As a musician myself, I rarely go out to shows anymore unless a friend of mine is playing. Truth is that high profile bands tend to charge too much (and I can always find their videos on YouTube), and bands I’ve never heard of tend to suck so bad they make me wish that sound waves didn’t propagate through Earth’s atmosphere. However, though I go to fewer and fewer individual shows, I find myself at festivals more and more often.

The website Festival Finder counts more than 2500 music festivals in its database. Many of these, such as California’s Coachella, Tennessee’s Bonnaroo, and the Pitchfork Music Festival, began in the last decade. Others, such as Texas’ South by Southwest, have become as important to the music scene as Sundance is to the film world. Every serious music magazine and website is expected to have a large journalistic presence at all of these festivals (assuming there are any journalists left to cover them). And this is to say nothing of the literally hundreds of niche festivals, such as Tanglewood (classical/jazz), Hardly Strictly (bluegrass, since ‘01), or what used to be called the Newport Folk Festival (folk, duh).

What explains the sudden proliferation? Are we seeing another painfully self-conscious Woodstock-ian rennaissance for Generation Y’ers? Is the music being played so loud that the majority of crowds are neighbors coming over to complain? Are we feeling particularly festive at watching the music industry go down in flames?

Actually, the explanation is far less hippy-dippy. Festivals mean big money for promoters and advertisers, and where the money goes, so goes the music. Because of shared costs and centralization, festivals are more economically efficient than individual shows,  for everyone involved. And it’s not just the sponsors that see benefits, but the cities that host the festivals. According to Wikipedia, SXSW is the highest revenue producing special event in Austin, with an estimated impact of $110 million dollars in 2008.

And musicians love festivals, too. According to Jon Eaton of The Spinto Band: “Festivals have a celebratory vibe that isn’t usually found at a bar or nightclub show. We are usually done with our festival requirements by 4 or 5 in the afternoonand can unwind and head out to listen to the headliners for the rest of the evening.” Glancing at current hipster favorite Andrew Bird’s touring schedule, one finds him at Lollapalooza on August 7^th, Big Chili Festival on the 9^th, Oya Festival on the 12^th, Way Out West Festival on the 14^th, and Haldern Pop Festival on the 15^th. Of his next sixteen shows, only three look to be individual shows at traditional venues. It is the summer, which is when a majority of festivals take place, but that’s still an impressive ratio.

As for the average concertgoer, the choice between a single show and a festival is easy. The first batch of tickets to June’s 3-day Bonnaroo Festival went for about $210, and a driven musicophile with good shoes can see $1000s of dollars worth of shows in that time. This year’s Bonnaroo lineup included many acts that are far more expensive on their own: Bruce Springsteen ($104 at a traditional show), Nine Inch Nails ($55), Phish ($50), Elvis Costello ($65), and a hundred other bands, comics, and performers.

This is to say nothing of the entertainment efficiency of a festival. Let’s admit it, one of the joys of seeing some past-their-prime throwback like The Beastie Boys (also at Bonnaroo) or a ridiculous self-parody like Snoop Dogg (ditto) is to be able to say you’ve seen them. So why not check off a few dozen boxes in one go? Ten years ago, I saw Lou Reed at Bumbershoot perform his musicalization of Poe’s The Raven, and I’ve been bitching about how awful it was ever since. The truth is, I only ended up watching him because there weren’t any other good bands on during that afternoon. Only at a festival can one experience the musical equivalent of channel surfing.

And now one can do it while practicing Yoga. Finally.