Tennents Mutual line-up vote
Posted: July 22nd, 2008, by Marceline SmithWell, the votes have been added up for who WE THE FANS want to play at the new Triptych replacement event(s). Here are the results (complete with pie charts!!). As expected, it looks exactly like the average festival but without the experimental/local stuff of Triptych. Ho hum. I appreciate they’re trying to do something different here but give some indie kids a voting form and they will just write Muse, Belle and Sebastian, Arcade Fire without even looking.
The next stage should be interesting, and one we are getting no say in, as they take the band list, locations and type of event votes and go and book all the events. As they say here, “We’ll feature as broad a selection of talent from the final Top 40 within this year’s full line-up as possible…budget and artist availability permitting.” (my italics). If one were to be cynical, one would think they will just book whatever they damn well like, considering that at least 50% of these bands will refuse or be unable to play, especially since the kids also voted for “A series of smaller site-specific gigs”.
ATP’s version seemed a lot more transparent, and they were pretty quick to get unavailable bands crossed off so people could move their votes elsewhere. The Tennents version is turning out a lot more behind closed doors, despite being ‘shaped’ by the fans.
I await further news with interest.
Marceline Smith
Marceline is the fierce, terrifying force behind diskant.net, laughing with disdain as she fires sharpened blades of sarcasm in all directions. Based in Scotland, her lexicon consists of words such as 'jings', 'aboot' and 'aye': our trained voice analysts are yet to decipher some of the relentless stream of genius uttered on a twenty-four hour basis. Marceline's hobbies include working too much and going out in bad weather.
http://www.marcelinesmith.com