DON’T ROCK THE INBOX – With a few obvious exceptions, festival lineups, especially country festival lineups, rarely surprise me. They all generally follow the same formula, with Token White Dudes on the top line and a few other folks sprinkled in on what I like to call the “squinters,” i.e. written in such tiny print it’s nearly impossible to read. But these big country festivals are the bread and butter of the successful country career at this point – hell, songs are even crafted in the writing room with the specific goal of entertaining very drunk people in fields sweating in July weather. You know that Dierks Bentley doesn’t write “5-1-5-0” to scratch his artistry itch.

And it’s not just that mainstream country festivals are generally boring and predictable, it’s that the artists themselves rarely make any surprising or interesting moves on the circuit either. They do the same shit with the same people to the point they all look almost entirely the same. See: Country Jam Festival below, or Tailgate Tallboys or Country Thunder Florida or SoloCupdown Seattle (I made one of those up and won’t tell you which), or the summer schedule of a Riley Green or Cody Johnson or Bailey Zimmerman. Pretty much zero creativity, and we’re not even talking about the whole other massive issue of equity, which deserves (and will be) it’s own post.