Festival-goers are more than upset at the lineup change that left many of the heavy weight performers out of the original TriTone Music & Art Festival bill, which is scheduled for October 19, 20 and 21 at the Prado Regional Park in San Bernardino County.
Since the headlining image to the event’s Facebook profile was changed to a new promotional flyer in which Zoé, Fobia, Belanova, Ximena Sariñana, Moenia, Los Bunkers, Panda and Ceci Bastida were dropped from the list of performers, the public has taken to social media to express their discontent and concerns with tickets already purchased.
According to Steve Ortega, founder of BRC Entertainment, the production company behind the festival, the original idea to produce a 3-day Latin music festival that mirrored the Coachella blue print, fell apart because of poor ticket sales. “The decision was needed to be made in order to salvage any part of the festival,” states Ortega, adding that the 300 or so tickets that were sold since opening day on June 29 were simply not cutting it.
“Ultimately the decision was made by a board made up of members of the County of San Bernardino and the High Desert Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,” he said. “These were the main people backing the event and they had every right to become worried”.
Ortega states that up to the point when the board was faced with making a decision, most of the investment was being made into payroll for various booking agents and into having certain bands play. “We didn’t have a Carlos Santana or a Jennifer Lopez headlining the show, and as popular as the bands on the original bill are, they weren’t enough to drive ticket sells so it didn’t make sense to pay high fees”.
The bands that were dropped from the original lineup were mostly from MX Live Entertainment, the leading Latin entertainment-booking agency in the U.S. Fobia and Zoé seemed to be the biggest loss, for attendees at least.
Ortega fears that one of the factors that affected ticket sales was that the Super Estrella radio network, a popular contemporary hit radio station broadcasting in the Greater Los Angeles area, would not sell them advertising time. “Anyone who knows this L.A. market knows that that radio station is the place to go to promote and event like TriTone”, he said. “When they told us they couldn’t sell us time because we were a direct competition to their Reventón concert, we knew we were in trouble. We were counting on their support”.
Now, instead of producing a 3-day Latin music festival featuring bands from various Latin genres, BRC Entertainment will present a weekend-long series of individual concerts with one night of electronica music, one night of regional Mexican and one night of Latin music featuring the bands that remain from the original bill. “If you think about it, the top ranking Spanish radio stations in the country are regional Mexican, adding that to the event will help save the festival”.
In regards to tickets purchased for the original lineup, Ortega assures that each of the customers will receive an email with the option to receive a full refund or swap their tickets for VIP passes to the current weekend festivities.
“Looking back at it now, I admit we were a bit ambitious,” he adds. “I’ve been an entrepreneur most of my life and I have definitely learned from the mistakes made in producing this festival. But our hearts were in the right place and at this point, we just want all our customers to be happy”.
Single day tickets for the October 19, 20 and 21 concerts taking place at Prado Regional Park are currently on sale for $50. Final lineups for each of the dates have not been announced.
