In an period the place live performance tickets typically rival the price of a mortgage cost, Kevin Lyman stands as a defiant anomaly. Thirty-one years after founding the Vans Warped Tour, the pop-punk patriarch is wanting on the fashionable music business with a mix of confusion and frustration. And he’s excited that his Warped Tour, on the comeback path for a second straight yr, is staying true to its values.
“Ticket prices have gotten so out of hand,” Lyman informed Fortune over a Zoom name, luxuriating within the California Solar over Zoom as New York shivered beneath a brutal winter. Rather a lot has modified since he first sundown Warped Tour earlier than bringing it again during the last two years, mentioned Lyman, who has been instructing a music business program on the College of Southern California for eight years.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see a touring festival the size of Warped Tour [again],” Lyman informed Fortune about returning to the mallpunk heyday of the mid-’90s, when a ticket solely ran $18, as one Reddit poster associated a yr in the past on the r/nostalgia thread.
In 1997, the Warped Tour boasted a killer pop-punk lineup: Pennywise, The Descendents, Limp Bizkit, Social Distortion, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Blink-182 have been all on the invoice. The poster on Reddit mentioned they have been “incredibly nostalgic for these prices.” (The primary-ever tour was no slouch, with Elegant and No Doubt, amongst others.)
A nationwide touring pageant simply isn’t possible in the identical manner within the 2020s, given logistics and prices concerned, Lyman mentioned. As a substitute, the brand new iteration focuses on vacation spot weekends and increasing into Mexico and Canada. “I think it’s a statement that, ‘Hey, we’re all human beings and we all can connect through things like music and culture. You know, it’s horrible living in Southern California right now, how people are being treated and, and, you know, it’s frustrating on a daily level to just see the inhumanity that’s treat taking over. And, you know, Warped has always been a place for humanity.”
In 2026, Warped Tour will ship 5 two-day U.S. festivals returning to Washington, D.C., Lengthy Seaside, and Orlando alongside the launch of recent worldwide editions in Montreal. and Mexico Metropolis. Warped Tour has been dropping names of acts one after the other on its Instagram web page, largely new manufacturers plus older, nostalgic acts reminiscent of Phantom Planet and The Used. It’s a part of a wave of comparable nostalgia excursions for the ‘90s and early 2000s, because the When We Have been Younger pageant in Las Vegas and excursions celebrating the twentieth anniversary of seminal emo albums by My Chemical Romance, as an illustration. Mark Cuban has invested in Burwoodland, which hosts “emo night” singalongs that includes DJs, shock cameos and a heavy dose of low-cost nostalgia.
Lyman argued that $150 for a two-day pageant, charges included, is greater than honest these days. Lyman mentioned he priced the Warped comeback this fashion so followers may “get their big dose of music over two days at the Warped Tour for the price of what half of another show’s ticket could be, you know, for 150 bands.” To Lyman’s level, this may put Warped Tour under even the low finish of ticket costs for multiday festivals, which might go as excessive as $600, per SoFi estimates, though costs do improve nearer to the day of the present.
They’re additionally doing as many free occasions as they’ll to supply followers a enjoyable time out, holding one lately in Lengthy Seaside. Lyman mentioned he was shocked by the turnout. “We just said Warped Gathering and 1,500 people came, [we did] not even know what was going to happen. And we had some bands play.”
It might be a radical proposition within the present reside music financial system, however for Lyman, it’s a matter of sustainability over greed. “Everyone has to work together. The bands have to understand that they can’t take too big of a piece of the pie, the vendors, to be able to make this price work,” Lyman defined. He mentioned it’s exhausting work, however sustainable. He’s proud that lots of people he nonetheless works with on festivals got here up by way of the ranks, reminiscent of Maureen Valker-Barlow, who started her profession working the catering facet at Warped.
An OG (re)takes the stage
Lyman acknowledged that the times of business excesses are over, or at the least they need to be. “Not everyone is getting super-rich, maybe like they did in the ’90s, the ’80s, but you can make a good living doing this by hard, honest work,” he mentioned. (Lyman later clarified to Fortune it is a private perception that he has, and it’s a bit speculative with out exhausting knowledge.)
This grounding philosophy stems from Lyman’s sudden path to music mogul standing. He by no means meant to run a worldwide pageant model; initially, he thought he could be “running summer and youth camps my whole life.” In a manner, he nonetheless is. Observers typically describe Warped Tour as a “pop punk punk rock summer camp,” an outline that Lyman accepts.
He mentioned he views his function much less as a promoter and extra as a “curator of a culture.” The magic of Warped Tour wasn’t simply the bands on stage—Elegant, NoFX, Pennywise—however what occurred “between the stages.” It was a spot the place children may uncover non-profits, skate ramps, and a way of belonging. Warped Tour introduced pockets chains worldwide, he notes proudly.
That sense of neighborhood is the driving drive behind Warped Tour’s return. After ending the cross-country run in 2019, Lyman mentioned felt a void and an enormous affect got here from his instructing profession. “I talked to my students, and I [felt] they were lacking community post-pandemic,” and he felt it was the suitable time to return.
Regardless of the modifications, the vibe stays distinctly Warped. Lyman described the ambiance of the pageant merely as “freedom,” saying that he sees it as a crowd of “thinkers” who police themselves higher than any safety staff may. Lyman recalled an enormous weekend in Lengthy Seaside with 80,000 attendees that resulted in just one arrest—a drunk fan who took Ice-T’s lyrics too actually and began shouting on the police. Lyman mentioned he requested the fan instantly, “please don’t say it one more time,” however he thinks it was comparatively innocent, an evening within the drunk tank. “Warped has always been a place for humanity,” Lyman noticed, saying it has all the time been a self-regulating neighborhood, not like most different festivals.
Guided by the Japanese philosophy of “Ikigai”—one other factor he teaches his college students, about discovering the intersection of what you might be good at, what the world wants, and what you will be paid for—Lyman appears content material. He mentioned he isn’t chasing the best revenue margin essentially; he’s chasing the proper summer season camp. And in a music business that usually feels damaged, a good ticket worth may be probably the most punk rock assertion of all. “Being fiscally responsible is a key,” he mentioned, nevertheless it’s additionally essential to do not forget that many of the work you do daily ought to be about supporting your neighborhood.
Warped Tour means “freedom,” he added. “You know, it’s like you go into the parking lots and everyone kind of feels freedom. We don’t tell them what time the bands are playing. They’re thinkers that go to Warped Tour. They know to bring their three cans of food to donate at the front gates for the food banks.” (Over 25 non-profits are contain in Warped’s return, with Feed the Youngsters serving to distribute canned meals to native meals banks.) Lyman mentioned followers keep concerned year-round. “Now we’re trying to do more and more during these weekends during the offseason to keep that community together.”
