How do you keep a small Midwest music festival special when it blows up on TikTok?
While some may lament traveling to the desolate fields of our neighbor to the south, I have always been excited when the car’s GPS heads to Iowa. In my childhood, it was the place to visit my cousins. Then it became the place we camped every summer with my mom’s college roommates and their families. For the past three years, the wide-spanning countryside of St. Charles, Iowa is where I speed the first weekend in August with my sister for the Hinterland Music Festival.
Before this year, few people recognized the name “Hinterland” when I would tell them about my summer plans. But this was exactly the way I liked it. While I couldn’t protect our favorite artists from gaining more followers, this festival was the one thing that was just for me and my sister. Past the gates, we were new people– Free to sing, dance and run around to inflate our pouch-couch like idiots.
Hinterland was a place where we didn’t have to worry about seeing someone from our high school while scream-singing embarrassingly loud. Hinterland was the reason for our first solo trip before leaving to go to different colleges. We could huddle together in the pouring rain while listening to Houndmouth’s “Sedona” live for the first time, which has always been our song. I remember swaying in the blistering Iowa sun while eating our favorite chicken tacos from the infamous fire-truck-turned-food-truck and sneaking into the kid’s tent to steal a coloring book.
But this year, things changed.
After going viral on social media following the release of this summer’s lineup, including headliners Hozier, Noah Kahan and Vampire Weekend, Hinterland Music Festival is growing rapidly in popularity and for the first time, sold out of all three-day passes the day they went on sale.
“Best ACTUAL folk line-up in America this summer??”
“googling how to move to iowa real quick”
“this actually has to be a dream i could not imagine a better line up”
These were just some of the 716 comments on the Instagram post announcing the 2024 Hinterland Music Festival line-up on January 16.
“ALYSSA I CALLED IT!”
That was my text message to my sister that same morning, as I sent her a link to the Instagram-announced line-up. I had been predicting Hozier as the Friday night headliner for months and my hypothesis had been confirmed. My sister and I had been planning on purchasing another set of three-day passes just as we had done in years prior. Talking about it since we arrived home from the last trip, meticulously designing the perfect road trip, matching our outfits for each day, and deciding on which new food trucks we wanted to try this year.
Now it all felt different.
At first it was the presale code. In previous years, we had purchased our three day passes a few weeks or a month before the festival. This would Give us some extra time to save up before the big buy. This year, you had to sign up for a presale code which would be delivered into your email inbox the day the tickets went on sale. I was getting flashbacks to the hours I spent skipping class to try and get tickets to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour last year. My hands shook as I carried my laptop, still open, across campus on the snowiest day of the year to prevent losing my spot in line. But that was a worldwide superstar, touring globally for the first time in years. This was my festival.
And then it was all over my TikTok “for you page”. Hundreds of people talking about buying tickets. Talking about how good the lineup was. And questioning how such an amazing festival could exist amid the nowhereness of rural Iowa. As I sat waiting for the blue bar across my laptop screen to signal my turn to move from the queue to the purchasing screen, I couldn’t help but wonder how all of this publicity would impact my Hinterland experience.
I am a bit of a gatekeeper, I’ll be honest. But losing my festival to TikTok felt like losing something sacred. All of the years of memories would now be shared with people who didn’t even know about it before this year. I’m sure the crowds of newcomers don’t even know about the coloring books that are hand designed by local artists and are unique every year.
Although, why should I be surprised? Social media is increasingly changing the way venues, artists, festivals and fans experience, consume and showcase live music. Social media allows music to reach hundreds of thousands of fans in an instant. The small, indie bands we consider our own become big bands signed to renowned labels and before we know it, they’re crashing ticket sites with sales. And it sucks! There is something so special about being the first person to get into an artist– to know them before everyone else, to say “I was here while they were still playing house shows!”
My first instinct is to approach these changes with anger and resentment (there is no way these people get Hinterland like I do!) But I’m trying to be grateful for the festival’s newfound fame. It means there’s a new group of fans who love the same music I do.
So, as August comes near, I’ll reminisce on my favorite memories of Hinterlands past and vow to make even better memories this summer. Even if the lines are longer, the crowds are bigger, and less room to place our pouch-couch. The flipside is that I’ll be surrounded by more people who are seeing their favorite musicians and more people singing along. People are making memories next to the people they care about. Just like me.
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All media is hyper-linked, no interviews were conducted, all anecdotal information comes from my personal experience