The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2016
AEG launched a rival to Governors Ball on Randall's Island — it folded after three years
Panorama Music Festival competed for the same New York crowd and dates as an established rival; AEG called a 'hiatus' after 2018 and it never returned.
AEG · Goldenvoice · 2019-01-18
What happened
AEG and its subsidiary Goldenvoice launched Panorama Music Festival on Randall's Island in New York City in 2016, entering a market that already had an established summer festival, Governors Ball, run by Founders Entertainment. AEG had originally been in talks to buy Governors Ball itself; when those talks fell through, it built a competing festival on overlapping dates instead.
Panorama ran for three editions, 2016 through 2018, competing directly with Governors Ball for the same New York audience, artists and calendar window. On January 18, 2019, organizers announced the festival would take a 'hiatus,' citing an intent to eventually move it to its originally envisioned home in Queens' Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
The relocation never happened and Panorama never returned in any year after 2018, quietly ending after three editions without a formal cancellation announcement.
Why it happened
- AEG built a festival to directly compete with an already-established rival on the same dates and in the same market, splitting the available audience rather than growing it.
- The festival never secured its intended long-term venue in Flushing Meadows, leaving it dependent on Randall's Island permits it could lose.
- A 'hiatus' announcement with no fixed return date let the festival wind down without organizers ever stating a firm reason for stopping.
- Three years wasn't enough for Panorama to out-draw an incumbent festival with a head start and a loyal New York audience.
The lesson
Launching a festival to compete head-on with an entrenched rival on its own turf and dates is a harder bet than the market size might suggest.
Aftermath
Panorama never resumed after its January 2019 hiatus announcement. Governors Ball, the rival festival it was built to compete with, continued running in New York in the years that followed. AEG did not launch a replacement New York festival on the same footprint.
Sources
- Panorama Festival Not Returning in 2019 — Billboard
- New York's Panorama Music Festival 'Taking a Hiatus' in 2019 — Rolling Stone
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