About a half hour ago, Kanrocksas‘ website went blank. The following is all that remains there:
“Due to insufficient ticket sales, Midwest Music Festivals and Kansas Speedway have decided to cancel the 2013 Kanrocksas Music Festival scheduled for June 28th and 29th.
There are no plans to reschedule the event at this time.
The Kanrocksas authorized ticketing agent, ground(ctrl), will process all ticket refunds including service fees electronically. Customers will receive an email Tuesday, May 28th informing them of the cancellation and when they can expect their refund.
For questions about refunds or to check the status of your refund please visit:
http://support.groundctrl.com
Sincere thanks from our entire event staff to those who supported the festival in 2011 and with advance tickets this year.
Kansas Speedway + MMF, LLC.”
You know, we could go through all the I-told-you-sos, point out how the lineup skewed too heavily electronic to attract people that can fork out a bunch of cash for a day and a half party. And how no one wanted to camp at the barren wasteland known as the Kansas Speedway.
But I’m not here for that because, well, it sucks they couldn’t make this thing work. No, I wasn’t a big fan of the lineup, but there were some acts I was looking forward to, for sure.
Anyway, this festival got taken out behind the woodshed (again) – I think this time for good. I hope the promoters still stay in the fest game, though, but perhaps scale their vision back a little.
Oh, and get rid of that terrible name.
Kanrocksas was never about “the music”. It was about Bill Brandmeyer buying his way into the inner circle of “cool” concert and festival promoters.
Oddly enough, assuming most of the bands and production contractors were paid a 50% deposit, the loss this year might rival that of 2011..
Only Chris Fritz knows how to pull off “The Concert That Never Was”.
BooHoo.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! This was a shit idea from the start. Bad music, bad ticket prices, bad venue.
How not surpising. A bunch of crappy bands that couldn’t sell out the Record Bar on their own and won’t be around in a couple of years. Few bands have careers anymore. They have a single you download because they couldn’t possibly make an entire album (or whatever you want to call it) of good songs
I beg to differ. They had a ton of bands too big for the RECORD BAR
This lineup would have had problems filling standstone.
BOO.
This concert was always going to be more Altamont than Woodstock anyway. $200 tix to camp at a speedway in late July and get your head caved in by a overeager Bonner Springs police officer or die of heat exaustion from too much molly-dolly and $8 waters
No thanks. Tiesto comes here every year or so at the Midland and/or uptown and tix are normally ~$75
If you like the dirtfoot camping scene with 3 paper joints, patchwork dresses and unkempt bushes I suggest they hit up Wakarusa in the Ozarks (now with less DHS than Larryville Wakas).
WTF is wrong with the Record Bar?!?! Hidden gem for pub grub!
Short and sweet=3 out of 5
Lots when you are trying to sell out a speedway-sized festival with acts that play at gigs like the Record Bar.
Caused one promoter/martyr to close up shop.
LOTS wrong with the Record Bar? because.you.trying.to.sell.out.a.speedway…record.bar? Quod infernum loqueris?!
ok, so nothing is wrong with the Record Bar.
I agree there was/is much wrong with this event.
“This lineup would have had problems filling standstone.”
I was ripped for saying that a couple weeks ago. Yeah Yeah Yeah were the only true headliner and I’m not sure how big of a headliner they would have been in Kansas City.
Sorry, that’s the truth here. He needed to find some kind of a niche and could not find it. He needed to be able to build it up from a small scale at some private land somewhere and build it up as an up and coming indie festival or some crap like that. Tried too big too soon without building up cache.
As I said on the other story, two things you never do at Kansas Speedway;
See a NASCAR event or go to a CONCERT.
And your attempt at humor, Paul, was lukewarm in both posts. Kansas Speedway is a great place to watch a NASCAR race, if you’re into that kind of thing. If you’re not, no reason to go, but that part of your comment comes off as snobbishly ill-informed, based most likely on your lack of interest in motorsports.
As for a concert, I agree, it sucks for too many reasons to list here.
Actually, I thought the stage setup and sound from 2011 was really good. It’s just that the venue doesn’t translate well to a hippy camping festival.