BRIDGEPORT – Will there be a Soundside Music Festival next year? That’s the question Mayor Joe Ganim and former festival organizer Jimmy Koplik have been asked since this year’s event was abruptly cancelled last month.
While the mayor is a bit more optimistic about the prospects of a year five iteration of the festival, Koplik is not.
“I guess probably not that there would be another Soundside festival,” Koplik, president of Live Nation Connecticut, told WPLR’s Chaz and AJ show July 31. “To try year five, I wouldn’t suggest to try year five. I can’t imagine C3 (the Live Nation division in charge of this year’s festival) would look forward to doing year five. It’s damaged goods.”
Actually, Chaz may have gotten to the bottom of the sudden cancellation – lack of ticket sales.
“In my mind, if tickets are sold, it goes on,” the radio host said. “I mean, if tickets were selling like mad there would be no ‘circumstances beyond their control.’”
In fact, those words have been the only communication from C3 regarding the cancellation of the Sept. 27-28 concert at Seaside Park.
Mayor Ganim took to the airwaves with WICC radio host Melissa in the Morning on July 30 to give his take on the cancellation. The event was expected to include such acts s Hozier, The Killers, Weezer, Vampire Weekend, Remi Wolf and The Backseat Lovers.
“As far as how things unraveled about this, it became news to us just as quickly as it became news to the public unfortunately without a lot of details,” Ganim told Melissa Sheketoff. “I think this was seriously mishandled. I talked to Howard (Saffan of Hartford HealthCare Ampitheater) and Jimmy Koplik last night. Frankly, if they had been leading this like in the past they would have let us know what was happening.
Ganim said this year’s organizers “did stuff that just didn’t make sense, such as the attractiveness of some of the acts. The way they handled ticket sales was slow.”
The mayor’s chief administrative officer, Thomas Gaudett, told the Connecticut Post that low ticket sales was a major reason for the cancellation.
“It’s our understanding that this year’s lineup was drawing a lot fewer attendees than we have seen in the last few years,” Gaudett told the Post. “And that may have had an impact on the decision to cancel.”
General admission two-day passes for this year’s show started around $422, while VIP tickets were $1,486 to $1,951, according to SeatGeek.
In the festival’s short history there have been some hiccups, but the original organizers – Founders – addressed them on the fly, according to Koplik.
“Three years ago, we ran Sound on Sound,” he said. “The first day was handled very poorly by us. We fixed it by day two. And that went off really well. We got our feet wet in doing a festival in Connecticut. I was very proud of our team for fixing things overnight to make it better the next day. It was Founders (Entertainment) that helped us out. They did Gov Ball.” However, by the end of year two, Founders was bought by Live Nation, which came to Koplik and said they were going to have C3 run it. So, I stepped aside and let C3 run it.”
Then in 2024 the Foo Fighters pulled out of the festival only two days before it was due to open.
“I thought they (C3) did a great job of getting Greta Van Fleet and Jack White. They had two days to get great acts to replace Foo Fighters on short notice. They even had to get a private plane for Greta Van Fleet.”
For Mayor Ganim, he has a reason for wanting the show to go on next year since it was due to bring in about $500,000 to the city’s park and recreation budget. “We would have been a partner in profits,” Ganim said. “And, yes, there’s going to be less money coming to us.
“I looked at it. I think the people who are in charge of this that if there is an obligation and we pointed it out to them they will step up to the plate on it.”
He told Melissa in the Morning that he plans to speak to Saffan and Koplik about the prospects of bringing the festival back next year.
