Lilith Fair 4.0

Throughout this summer, I vaguely followed the progress of Lilith Fair 2010: After a more than ten year hiatus, Sarah McLachlan had organized another all-female festival, with lots of old and new artists scheduled to perform, such as Sheryl Crow, Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, Indigo Girls, and Emmylou Harris. It was big news in the summer music-festival circuit. I wasn't paying much attention at first (I don't go to many festivals these days), but shortly after the line-up was announced, things started going terribly wrong. That's when I got interested.

Due to lackluster sales, a bunch of tour dates were cancelled. Then various headliners began dropping out: first Carly Simon, then Norah Jones, Kelly Clarkson, The Go-Go's, and Queen Latifah. Media outlets were calling it a huge failure.

The latest news, however, isn't quite that grim. Despite the cancelled shows and poor ticket sales, Lilith Fair ended up raising $500,000 for North American charities. So that's pretty good...but I'm sure Sarah M. originally intended the amount to be much higher (the first three concerts in '97, '98', and '99 raised over $10 million).

To be honest, singer/songwriters were never my thing (I've always been more of a rock-band kinda girl) and sitting through an entire Lilith Fair experience actually sounds painful to me, but that doesn't mean I don't love the idea of it: a concert by and for women (and their ridiculously sensitive boyfriends). If you're a woman, what's not to like?

So, what happened this time around? Obviously, not enough young women bought tickets. Because by now, a large portion of Lilith's original audience from the late 90's is probably saddled with young kids, making attending a festival out of the question. Did the young 20-somethings not realize the baton was being passed to them or did they just not want to grab it? I'd argue for the latter. After all, female artists have come a long way since the mid to late 90's; back then, most of the women in the biz were making dance music (Mariah, Janet, Madonna). So when the singer/songwriter variety took the world by storm it was like, "WOW, these chicks are TALENTED! I feel empowered! Let's check them out!" Now it's almost the norm for women artists to write the lyrics, arrange the music, play an instrument (or two), AND sing the song. So what's the big deal about a bunch of women performing at a festival? It kinda seems quaint.

So I'm not surprised Lilith Fair didn't take off this year. However, Sarah M. says she's going to put together another one next summer. I think she would be smart to do some rebranding: Make it hipper and sexier. More tattoos, less granola. Then perhaps the young ladies will come out in force and raise more money for charity. Hey, it could happen.