| Over the past year, as the fate of mainstream tentpole festivals has been questioned, their future is starting to come into clearer focus. Numerous superstar artists have concentrated their efforts on fostering festival-like atmospheres at their own shows or putting their stamp of approval on wider events. Niche, genre-based affairs continue to see success too, giving fans an opportunity to catch a bunch of their favorite groups in one place for one price. Take, for example, Karol G's Mañana Será Bonito event, which she hosted over two days this past December in Colombia. On the grounds, fans rode a branded ferris wheel, took photos in a ball pit, sat on a merry-go-round and played games with other attendees. In Germany this past August, Adele's team built an 80,000-capacity stadium from the ground up, complete with an "authentic English pub," karaoke stage and, of course, a ferris wheel. For both events, rather than fans showing up, potentially skipping the openers, and leaving, they instead had a reason to spend the day on-site. The uniqueness of the experience gave its promoters a more compelling pitch to anyone who might have been waffling about whether to buy tickets. "People go to generic events all the time," wrote Kirk M. Sommer, global co-head of music at WME and agent to Adele, in an email to me. "I think people want super focused experiential events that are thoughtfully curated around a subject or talent, and they want to spend time with like-minded people, or people in their communities, and have a broader shared experience." Artists who take a more hands-on approach, whether at their own festival-like space or as a curator for a larger festival, sometimes maintain a financial stake in the event, making the format even more compelling. "The artists see value in creating a property that their fans can rely on every year," said Ben Schildkraut, an agent at CAA who helps lead its festivals department. The agency has worked with acts like Deftones to put on their Dia De Los Deftones festival, which features various artists on a couple stages throughout the day. Just this past week, Morgan Wallen announced that, in partnership with AEG Events and Goldenvoice — the organizer of Coachella and the Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival from Tyler, The Creator — he'll launch the Sand in My Boots festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. It's essentially a rebrand of the broader Hangout festival for its 15th year, giving Wallen fans a reason to come beyond the headliner set. Wallen's name is all over the place. "Launching a new festival is really risky from a financial perspective, and I think when you have an artist as a backbone to your proposition, it's much stronger than trying to create a brand new property from scratch," said Schildkraut about this trend more generally. Artist curation, he added, "immediately bestows credibility to that event." At the same time, some of the more interesting success stories in the festival world as of late involve highly specific, niche festivals. When We Were Young, an emo and pop-punk-focused fest in Las Vegas, has continued to sell out multiple days. Headliners have included acts like Blink-182, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. Similarly, All Things Go, a queer- and female-focused festival, expanded to New York this year. As Vulture summed it up afterward in a headline: "NYC's Newest Music Festival Was a Gay Dream." "There have been a lot of festivals that have drilled for oil and missed," Sommer wrote. So as festivals look to guarantee attendance, and artists look to ensure their fans engage with them and their brand more deeply, festivals are going more niche to go big. | 
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