Few platforms within the historical past of the stay music enterprise are credited with breaking as many artists because the Vans Warped Tour.
For practically 1 / 4 of a century, from 1995 to its “closing” cross-country run in 2018, Warped Tour was a touring carnival of punk rock, ska, emo, metalcore, and hip-hop whose phases served as a launchpad for the likes of Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and numerous others.
The Warped Tour format was not like another main competition: bands have been listed alphabetically with no billing hierarchy, and set instances have been solely introduced on the day, scrawled on an enormous inflatable board on the entrance, that means followers needed to present up early, make snap selections, and uncover acts they’d by no means deliberate to see.
All of it got here from the thoughts of Kevin Lyman, who received his begin throwing punk reveals in Lengthy Seaside, California, and stage-managing Lollapalooza in 1991.
“The No Doubts, the Sublimes, [the] Quicksands – these bands have been keen to take a leap of religion with me,” Lyman remembers of Warped’s inaugural lineup.
“That was a bunch of friends [who] actually needed one thing like this, and so they let me be the [torch] bearer to go ahead with it and take the lumps, the nice and the unhealthy.”
What adopted was a 25-year run, which turned what’s believed to be the longest-running touring music competition in North American historical past. It additionally turned a testing floor for rising rock stars throughout pop punk and emo’s mainstream crossover within the late nineties and 2000s, and its affect rippled from followers to bands and the broader business.
“I began getting calls from band members going, ‘Man, I simply received instructed, if we don’t get on Warped, we don’t get pushed.’ And that was a bit onerous,” he remembers. “I by no means constructed [it] to be able of getting that a lot affect over somebody chasing their dream.
“The labels have been on the market scouting, too. They have been our Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands day-after-day; six to eight bands enjoying on that stage day-after-day that we’d vetted from hundreds [of submissions].
“Everybody goes, ‘Don’t you hearken to the band?’ I watched the entrance of the stage. If there have been six youngsters singing these songs as passionately as 1,000 youngsters would sing Dangerous Faith after I was working in a membership, that group had one thing.”
Lyman drew all of it to an in depth in 2019, however after a six-year hiatus, introduced Warped again in 2025 in partnership with Reside Nation-backed Insomniac Occasions.
It was an emphatic return: the competition’s three two-day stops, in Washington, D.C., Lengthy Seaside, and Orlando, bought a mixed 240,000 tickets, with the Lengthy Seaside cease alone drawing over 40,000 followers a day.
Lyman says that the revived occasion is interesting to a brand new era of rock followers.
“Final yr was an anomaly. We bought out with out saying bands,” he says. “I might by no means carry [Warped Tour] again as an entire nostalgia play,” he provides. “I needed to pay homage [to the past], in fact. However we needed to look to the longer term – of followers, manufacturers, and bands.
“However the cool factor about final yr [and] it’s not science, [but] a couple of third of the people who got here to Warped final yr have been at their first competition and even first live performance. That was fairly spectacular.
“And this yr we’re seeing a two-to-one ratio of latest bank cards to [returning ones]. It’s not scientific both, nevertheless it’s an indicator that we’re attracting a brand new viewers once more.”
“It was too near my soul. I couldn’t simply promote it. I knew somebody would have wrecked it in a yr.”
Kevin Lyman
Warped Tour is returning in 2026 with dates in D.C. (June 13-14), Lengthy Seaside (July 25-26), Montreal (August 21-22), Mexico Metropolis (September 12-13), and Orlando (November 14-15).
Along with interesting to a brand new era of followers, Lyman says preserving ticket pricing accessible is a non-negotiable. “Since 1995 I’ve had the lowest-[priced] tickets for festivals,” he claims, including: “The entry level to a competition has turn out to be fairly excessive.” Right now, two-day normal admission passes for Warped Tour begin at $149.
Past the competition, Lyman is an affiliate professor within the Music Trade program on the College of Southern California, and a not too long ago honored recipient of the Canadian Reside Music Affiliation’s International Influence in Reside Music award, introduced to him in Toronto.
Right here, Lyman discusses Warped Tour’s 2026 return, why the stay business wants a actuality verify on pricing, his strategy to artist discovery, and the one factor he’d change in regards to the music enterprise…
HOW DO YOU KEEP ticket costs accessible WHEN COSTS ARE RISING EVERYWHERE?
It’s at all times been a problem. Since 1995 I’ve had the lowest-[priced] tickets for festivals. However having this new companion with Insomniac, they’ve been very supportive, and even helped me hold the ticket value decrease final yr than I assumed it might be.
They spend money on tradition. They spend money on their group, the EDM group.
They don’t take a look at it as short-term. They don’t take a look at it as ‘this’ present. They’re it as a long-term funding in the neighborhood, and that’s a terrific companion to have.
WARPED TOUR HAS ALWAYS BEEN FAMOUS FOR ITS RANDOMIZED SCHEDULES – SET TIMES DECIDED ON THE DAY, NO OFFICIAL HEADLINERS, BANDS LISTED ALPHABETICALLY. WHERE DID THAT PHILOSOPHY COME FROM?
That stemmed from being the stage supervisor of Lollapalooza in 1991. I’d labored in golf equipment for thus lengthy, 320 nights a yr, and I’d see opening bands play as folks have been coming into the venue. I watched Henry Rollins, one of the vital intense performers in historical past, going for it on a giant stage with empty seats typically.
“I watched Henry Rollins, one of the vital intense performers in historical past, going for it on a giant stage with empty seats typically.”
And I might simply sit there and go, “What if I may put him on proper between Siouxsie and the Banshees and Jane’s Habit? How would which have modified the trajectory of an artist like him?”
So after I began Warped, I did every little thing otherwise. I began doing my posters alphabetically. We have been the primary ones to do this, as a result of I hated coping with billing. Billing is the most important waste of time in music, for my part.
Then it was like, combine up the schedule, as a result of I watched bands get lulled right into a sure spot on a invoice. It wasn’t difficult for them. Warped was a managed chaos that saved you a bit off stability. I put Katy Perry on proper earlier than Carry Me the Horizon, or proper after Pierce the Veil, and she or he received to be a greater stay artist due to that. You have been challenged to get these folks again to your stage.
“BILLING IS THE BIGGEST WASTE OF TIME IN MUSIC. PEOPLE ARGUE ABOUT IT FOR WEEKS. GET OUT THERE AND PROMOTE.”
In Lengthy Seaside [in 2025], we have been imagined to open the doorways at 11, and we needed to open at 9.
We had 45,000 folks by means of the doorways at 11 within the morning. That first band, in all probability 15,000 folks ran to that stage. Both that’s a catalyst for his or her future, or they’re going to have probably the most superb video to indicate their grandchildren of once they have been enjoying [to] 15,000 folks.
WARPED TOUR HELPED BREAK BLINK-182, FALL OUT BOY, PARAMORE, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, AND MANY OTHERS. HOW MUCH OF AN A&R ROLE WERE YOU AWARE YOU WERE PLAYING AT THE TIME?
I used to be in a fortunate place, as a result of quite a lot of instances when somebody has a competition, they do quite a lot of favors, placing younger bands on. I used to be in a position to put the very best musical band on my reveals.
I believe I had a reasonably good ear, however actually, I believe I’m sort of tone deaf. I actually am. However I can hear the emotion within the music [and] I can tie that into the stay present. That’s why we may signal Flogging Molly or Gogol Bordello. I used to be making an attempt to make it emotionally profitable, not commercially profitable.
That reminiscence of seeing Gogol Bordello stay and getting splashed with crimson wine and folks crowd-surfing in your head? I believe we’re in a society [where] all of us simply must mosh typically, bodily, mentally, emotionally.
THERE’S A LOT OF TALK IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS ABOUT ‘SUPERFANS’ RIGHT NOW. WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON HOW THE INDUSTRY IS APPROACHING THAT?
Sadly, our business retains speaking about monetizing the superfan. It’s at all times about monetizing them. Reward these superfans. Give them experiences. Give them one thing, after which they turn out to be superfans organically.
If you happen to can have an natural superfan, the monetization comes naturally. It’s not a compelled monetization factor.
“REWARD THOSE SUPERFANS. GIVE THEM EXPERIENCES. GIVE THEM SOMETHING, AND THEN THEY BECOME SUPERFANS ORGANICALLY. THE MONETIZATION COMES NATURALLY.”
These are the followers [that have allowed] bands like The Maine, Mayday Parade, and Much less Than Jake to keep up a profession of 30 years as band members – as a result of they acknowledged that early and caught with that mannequin.
YOU RECENTLY RECEIVED THE GLOBAL IMPACT IN LIVE MUSIC AWARD IN TORONTO, PRESENTED BY SUM 41’S DERYCK WHIBLEY. HOW DID THAT FEEL?
I didn’t understand I had that a lot sort of an impression on [Deryck’s] life. He was very [generous] in his introduction to me. He associated to once they have been younger and didn’t have anybody to go to [for] Thanksgiving, [and] we invited his band over, and so they had Thanksgiving dinner with our prolonged households.
I used to be by no means a type of folks [seeking adulation]. We’re employees, me and my spouse. However to search out out that I’ve been a part of folks’s lives — that I’ve allowed them to stay this way of life for so long as they’ve — it’s been a reasonably good experience.
The clearest theme from the bands backstage [at the 2025 comeback] was when a band instructed me: “We play festivals as a part of our marketing strategy now, however coming again to Warped is like coming house.”
CONSOLIDATION IN LIVE MUSIC IS A MAJOR TALKING POINT in the present day. WHAT’S YOUR VIEW?
Consolidation breeds innovation. You see it when the foremost businesses consolidate, then [they] lose folks and people folks go type smaller reserving businesses. There are at all times individuals who wish to create an alternate existence.
HAD THERE BEEN MANY ATTEMPTS TO ACQUIRE THE WARPED TOUR BRAND OVER THE YEARS?
Yeah. Individuals have been like, “You can have bought the identify.” And I am going, “No. It was too near my soul. I couldn’t simply promote it. I knew somebody would have wrecked it in a yr.”
IF YOU WERE IN YOUR TWENTIES TODAY WITH NO INFRASTRUCTURE, NO CONTACTS, AND NO CAPITAL, COULD YOU BUILD SOMETHING LIKE WARPED TOUR?
I believe a younger [promoter] must work like I did, for 12 years within the membership, and construct up these relationships to let you fail. I used to be allowed to fail that first yr, however I’d made so many individuals look good, and labored so onerous, and [had been] type to folks, that I used to be given a second probability.
Lots of people who are available in [to the business now] might need the arrogance, however they border on cockiness, [thinking]: ‘I don’t must pay my dues.’”
[In the early days], the No Doubts, the Sublimes, [the] Quicksands – these bands have been keen to take a leap of religion with me. Then that second yr, NOFX and Pennywise noticed it. I’m doing a little work with will.i.am [right now], and he walked within the room and gave me an enormous hug and flipped proper again to that parking zone, telling [me] how he made relationships in punk rock at Warped Tour that he by no means thought he’d have in life.
These folks gave me a second probability in ’96, after which issues began surprisingly falling in place.
Blink was proper on my bus [that] summer season. They couldn’t afford the transportation prices. I keep in mind paying them $250. And now they get seven figures or extra for a competition. That’s not going to suit my financial mannequin, nevertheless it’s superior that they went that far, as a result of our scene of music by no means went that far.
IF THERE WAS ONE THING YOU COULD CHANGE ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
I believe these main firms which might be reporting report earnings ought to create a fund to assist youthful artists as general tour assist, and for the smaller golf equipment, to maintain them in enterprise. 100-to-500-seaters are closing left and proper as a result of they have been constructed on a mannequin of alcohol pays the payments and tickets promote. We’re dropping all these venues.
There’s received to be a couple of million [dollars available] that may make our business higher – serving to psychological well being, serving to crew, artists, bands in want.
[If] these companies are recording report earnings, why don’t they offer a bit bit again to that artist [community] that we’re making an attempt to maintain alive? Our business ought to assist them a bit extra.Music Enterprise Worldwide
