Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman on rewarding superfans, breaking artists, and the enterprise of festivals
Few platforms within the historical past of the reside music enterprise are credited with breaking as many artists because the Vans Warped Tour.
For almost 1 / 4 of a century, from 1995 to its “remaining” cross-country run in 2018, Warped Tour was a touring carnival of punk rock, ska, emo, metalcore, and hip-hop whose levels served as a launchpad for the likes of Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and numerous others.
The Warped Tour format was not like some other main competition: bands have been listed alphabetically with no billing hierarchy, and set instances have been solely introduced on the day, scrawled on a large inflatable board on the entrance, that means followers needed to present up early, make snap selections, and uncover acts they’d by no means deliberate to see.
All of it got here from the thoughts of Kevin Lyman, who received his begin throwing punk exhibits in Lengthy Seaside, California, and stage-managing Lollapalooza in 1991.
“The No Doubts, the Sublimes, [the] Quicksands – these bands have been keen to take a leap of religion with me,” Lyman remembers of Warped’s inaugural lineup.
“That was a gaggle of friends [who] actually wished one thing like this, and so they let me be the [torch] bearer to go ahead with it and take the lumps, the great and the unhealthy.”
What adopted was a 25-year run, which turned what’s believed to be the longest-running touring music competition in North American historical past. It additionally turned a testing floor for rising rock stars throughout pop punk and emo’s mainstream crossover within the late nineties and 2000s, and its affect rippled from followers to bands and the broader business.
“I began getting calls from band members going, ‘Man, I simply received advised, if we don’t get on Warped, we don’t get pushed.’ And that was a little bit laborious,” he remembers. “I by no means constructed [it] to be ready of getting that a lot affect over somebody chasing their dream.
“The labels have been on the market scouting, too. They have been taking a look at our Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands each day; six to eight bands taking part in on that stage each day that we’d vetted from hundreds [of submissions].
“Everybody goes, ‘Don’t you take heed to the band?’ I watched the entrance of the stage. If there have been six children singing these songs as passionately as 1,000 children would sing Unhealthy Faith once I was working in a membership, that group had one thing.”
Lyman drew all of it to a detailed in 2019, however after a six-year hiatus, introduced Warped again in 2025 in partnership with Dwell Nation-backed Insomniac Occasions.
It was an emphatic return: the competition’s three two-day stops, in Washington, D.C., Lengthy Seaside, and Orlando, offered a mixed 240,000 tickets, with the Lengthy Seaside cease alone drawing over 40,000 followers a day.
Lyman says that the revived occasion is interesting to a brand new technology of rock followers.
“Final yr was an anomaly. We offered out with out asserting bands,” he says. “I might by no means deliver [Warped Tour] again as an entire nostalgia play,” he provides. “I wished to pay homage [to the past], after all. However we needed to look to the long run – of followers, manufacturers, and bands.
“However the cool factor about final yr [and] it’s not science, [but] a few third of the those who got here to Warped final yr have been at their first competition and even first live performance. That was fairly spectacular.
“And this yr we’re seeing a two-to-one ratio of recent bank cards to [returning ones]. It’s not scientific both, but it surely’s an indicator that we’re attracting a brand new viewers once more.”
“It was too near my soul. I couldn’t simply promote it. I knew somebody would have wrecked it in a yr.”
Kevin Lyman
Warped Tour is returning in 2026 with dates in D.C. (June 13-14), Lengthy Seaside (July 25-26), Montreal (August 21-22), Mexico Metropolis (September 12-13), and Orlando (November 14-15).
Along with interesting to a brand new technology of followers, Lyman says maintaining ticket pricing accessible is a non-negotiable. “Since 1995 I’ve had the lowest-[priced] tickets for festivals,” he claims, including: “The entry level to a competition has turn into fairly excessive.” Immediately, two-day common admission passes for Warped Tour begin at $149.
Past the competition, Lyman is an affiliate professor within the Music Trade program on the College of Southern California, and a lately honored recipient of the Canadian Dwell Music Affiliation’s World Affect in Dwell Music award, offered to him in Toronto.
Right here, Lyman discusses Warped Tour’s 2026 return, why the reside business wants a actuality examine on pricing, his strategy to artist discovery, and the one factor he’d change in regards to the music enterprise…
HOW DO YOU KEEP ticket costs accessible WHEN COSTS ARE RISING EVERYWHERE?
It’s at all times been a problem. Since 1995 I’ve had the lowest-[priced] tickets for festivals. However having this new companion with Insomniac, they’ve been very supportive, and even helped me maintain the ticket value decrease final yr than I assumed it could possibly be.
They spend money on tradition. They spend money on their group, the EDM group.
They don’t take a look at it as short-term. They don’t take a look at it as ‘this’ present. They’re taking a look at it as a long-term funding in the neighborhood, and that’s an excellent companion to have.
WARPED TOUR HAS ALWAYS BEEN FAMOUS FOR ITS RANDOMIZED SCHEDULES – SET TIMES DECIDED ON THE DAY, NO OFFICIAL HEADLINERS, BANDS LISTED ALPHABETICALLY. WHERE DID THAT PHILOSOPHY COME FROM?
That stemmed from being the stage supervisor of Lollapalooza in 1991. I’d labored in golf equipment for thus lengthy, 320 nights a yr, and I’d see opening bands play as individuals have been coming into the venue. I watched Henry Rollins, one of the crucial intense performers in historical past, going for it on an enormous stage with empty seats generally.
“I watched Henry Rollins, one of the crucial intense performers in historical past, going for it on an enormous stage with empty seats generally.”
And I might simply sit there and go, “What if I might put him on proper between Siouxsie and the Banshees and Jane’s Dependancy? How would which have modified the trajectory of an artist like him?”
So once I began Warped, I did every little thing in a different way. I began doing my posters alphabetically. We have been the primary ones to try this, as a result of I hated coping with billing. Billing is the most important waste of time in music, for my part.
Then it was like, combine up the schedule, as a result of I watched bands get lulled right into a sure spot on a invoice. It wasn’t difficult for them. Warped was a managed chaos that stored you a little bit off stability. I put Katy Perry on proper earlier than Deliver Me the Horizon, or proper after Pierce the Veil, and she or he received to be a greater reside artist due to that. You have been challenged to get these individuals again to your stage.
“BILLING IS THE BIGGEST WASTE OF TIME IN MUSIC. PEOPLE ARGUE ABOUT IT FOR WEEKS. GET OUT THERE AND PROMOTE.”
In Lengthy Seaside [in 2025], we have been imagined to open the doorways at 11, and we needed to open at 9.
We had 45,000 individuals by means of the doorways at 11 within the morning. That first band, in all probability 15,000 individuals ran to that stage. Both that’s a catalyst for his or her future, or they’re going to have probably the most superb video to point out their grandchildren of after they have been taking part in [to] 15,000 individuals.
WARPED TOUR HELPED BREAK BLINK-182, FALL OUT BOY, PARAMORE, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, AND MANY OTHERS. HOW MUCH OF AN A&R ROLE WERE YOU AWARE YOU WERE PLAYING AT THE TIME?
I used to be in a fortunate place, as a result of quite a lot of instances when somebody has a competition, they do quite a lot of favors, placing younger bands on. I used to be in a position to put the very best musical band on my exhibits.
I believe I had a reasonably good ear, however actually, I believe I’m type of tone deaf. I actually am. However I can hear the emotion within the music [and] I can tie that into the reside present. That’s why we might signal Flogging Molly or Gogol Bordello. I used to be attempting to make it emotionally profitable, not commercially profitable.
That reminiscence of seeing Gogol Bordello reside and getting splashed with pink wine and folks crowd-surfing in your head? I believe we’re in a society [where] all of us simply have to mosh generally, bodily, mentally, emotionally.
THERE’S A LOT OF TALK IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS ABOUT ‘SUPERFANS’ RIGHT NOW. WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON HOW THE INDUSTRY IS APPROACHING THAT?
Sadly, our business retains speaking about monetizing the superfan. It’s at all times about monetizing them. Reward these superfans. Give them experiences. Give them one thing, after which they turn into superfans organically.
Should you can have an natural superfan, the monetization comes naturally. It’s not a compelled monetization factor.
“REWARD THOSE SUPERFANS. GIVE THEM EXPERIENCES. GIVE THEM SOMETHING, AND THEN THEY BECOME SUPERFANS ORGANICALLY. THE MONETIZATION COMES NATURALLY.”
These are the followers [that have allowed] bands like The Maine, Mayday Parade, and Much less Than Jake to keep up a profession of 30 years as band members – as a result of they acknowledged that early and caught with that mannequin.
YOU RECENTLY RECEIVED THE GLOBAL IMPACT IN LIVE MUSIC AWARD IN TORONTO, PRESENTED BY SUM 41’S DERYCK WHIBLEY. HOW DID THAT FEEL?
I didn’t understand I had that a lot type of an affect on [Deryck’s] life. He was very [generous] in his introduction to me. He associated to after they have been younger and didn’t have anybody to go to [for] Thanksgiving, [and] we invited his band over, and so they had Thanksgiving dinner with our prolonged households.
I used to be by no means a type of individuals [seeking adulation]. We’re staff, me and my spouse. However to seek out out that I’ve been a part of individuals’s lives — that I’ve allowed them to reside this life-style for so long as they’ve — it’s been a reasonably good trip.
The clearest theme from the bands backstage [at the 2025 comeback] was when a band advised me: “We play festivals as a part of our marketing strategy now, however coming again to Warped is like coming residence.”
CONSOLIDATION IN LIVE MUSIC IS A MAJOR TALKING POINT in the present day. WHAT’S YOUR VIEW?
Consolidation breeds innovation. You see it when the foremost companies consolidate, then [they] lose individuals and people individuals go type smaller reserving companies. There are at all times individuals who wish to create another existence.
HAD THERE BEEN MANY ATTEMPTS TO ACQUIRE THE WARPED TOUR BRAND OVER THE YEARS?
Yeah. Individuals have been like, “You may have offered the title.” And I am going, “No. It was too near my soul. I couldn’t simply promote it. I knew somebody would have wrecked it in a yr.”
IF YOU WERE IN YOUR TWENTIES TODAY WITH NO INFRASTRUCTURE, NO CONTACTS, AND NO CAPITAL, COULD YOU BUILD SOMETHING LIKE WARPED TOUR?
I believe a younger [promoter] must work like I did, for 12 years within the membership, and construct up these relationships to can help you fail. I used to be allowed to fail that first yr, however I’d made so many individuals look good, and labored so laborious, and [had been] form to individuals, that I used to be given a second probability.
Lots of people who are available [to the business now] might need the boldness, however they border on cockiness, [thinking]: ‘I don’t must pay my dues.’”
[In the early days], the No Doubts, the Sublimes, [the] Quicksands – these bands have been keen to take a leap of religion with me. Then that second yr, NOFX and Pennywise noticed it. I’m performing some work with will.i.am [right now], and he walked within the room and gave me a large hug and flipped proper again to that parking zone, telling [me] how he made relationships in punk rock at Warped Tour that he by no means thought he’d have in life.
These individuals gave me a second probability in ’96, after which issues began unusually falling in place.
Blink was proper on my bus [that] summer time. They couldn’t afford the transportation prices. I keep in mind paying them $250. And now they get seven figures or extra for a competition. That’s not going to suit my financial mannequin, but it surely’s superior that they went that far, as a result of our scene of music by no means went that far.
IF THERE WAS ONE THING YOU COULD CHANGE ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
I believe these main firms which are reporting document income ought to create a fund to help youthful artists as total tour help, and for the smaller golf equipment, to maintain them in enterprise. 100-to-500-seaters are closing left and proper as a result of they have been constructed on a mannequin of alcohol pays the payments and tickets promote. We’re shedding all these venues.
There’s received to be a number of million [dollars available] that may make our business higher – serving to psychological well being, serving to crew, artists, bands in want.
[If] these companies are recording document income, why don’t they provide a little bit bit again to that artist [community] that we’re attempting to maintain alive? Our business ought to help them a little bit extra.Music Enterprise Worldwide
