Few platforms within the historical past of the reside 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 levels 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 pageant: bands have been listed alphabetically with no billing hierarchy, and set instances have been solely introduced on the day, scrawled on a large inflatable board on the entrance, which means followers needed to present up early, make snap choices, 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 prepared to take a leap of religion with me,” Lyman recollects of Warped’s inaugural lineup.
“That was a gaggle of friends [who] actually wished one thing like this, they usually let me be the [torch] bearer to go ahead with it and take the lumps, the nice and the dangerous.”
What adopted was a 25-year run, which grew to become what’s believed to be the longest-running touring music pageant in North American historical past. It additionally grew to become 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 slightly onerous,” he remembers. “I by no means constructed [it] to be ready 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 by day; six to eight bands enjoying on that stage day by day that we’d vetted from hundreds [of submissions].
“Everybody goes, ‘Don’t you take heed to the band?’ I watched the entrance of the stage. If there have been six children singing these songs as passionately as 1,000 children would sing Dangerous Faith after I was working in a membership, that group had one thing.”
Lyman drew all of it to a detailed in 2019, however after a six-year hiatus, introduced Warped again in 2025 in partnership with Stay Nation-backed Insomniac Occasions.
It was an emphatic return: the pageant’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 12 months was an anomaly. We bought out with out asserting bands,” he says. “I’d by no means deliver [Warped Tour] again as a whole nostalgia play,” he provides. “I wished to pay homage [to the past], in fact. However we needed to look to the long run – of followers, manufacturers, and bands.
“However the cool factor about final 12 months [and] it’s not science, [but] a couple of third of the folks that got here to Warped final 12 months have been at their first pageant and even first live performance. That was fairly spectacular.
“And this 12 months we’re seeing a two-to-one ratio of recent bank cards to [returning ones]. It’s not scientific both, however 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 12 months.”
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 holding 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 pageant has turn out to be fairly excessive.” Right now, two-day normal admission passes for Warped Tour begin at $149.
Past the pageant, Lyman is an affiliate professor within the Music Business program on the College of Southern California, and a lately honored recipient of the Canadian Stay Music Affiliation’s International Affect in Stay Music award, offered to him in Toronto.
Right here, Lyman discusses Warped Tour’s 2026 return, why the reside 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 all the time 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 preserve the ticket value decrease final 12 months than I assumed it could possibly be.
They put money into tradition. They put money into their group, the EDM group.
They don’t have a look at it as short-term. They don’t have a look at it as ‘this’ present. They’re it as a long-term funding in the neighborhood, and that’s an important 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 12 months, and I’d see opening bands play as individuals have been coming into the venue. I watched Henry Rollins, one of the crucial intense performers in historical past, going for it on a giant stage with empty seats generally.
“I watched Henry Rollins, one of the crucial intense performers in historical past, going for it on a giant stage with empty seats generally.”
And I’d simply sit there and go, “What if I may put him on proper between Siouxsie and the Banshees and Jane’s Dependancy? How would which have modified the trajectory of an artist like him?”
So after I began Warped, I did every little thing in another way. 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, in my view.
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 stored you slightly off steadiness. I put Katy Perry on proper earlier than Convey Me the Horizon, or proper after Pierce the Veil, and she or he received to be a greater reside artist due to that. You have been challenged to get these individuals 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 individuals via the doorways at 11 within the morning. That first band, most likely 15,000 individuals ran to that stage. Both that’s a catalyst for his or her future, or they’re going to have essentially the most superb video to indicate their grandchildren of once they have been enjoying [to] 15,000 individuals.
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 loads of instances when somebody has a pageant, they do loads of favors, placing younger bands on. I used to be in a position to put one of the best musical band on my reveals.
I feel I had a fairly good ear, however truthfully, I feel I’m type of tone deaf. I actually am. However I can hear the emotion within the music [and] I can tie that into the reside 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 reside and getting splashed with purple wine and folks crowd-surfing in your head? I feel we’re in a society [where] all of us simply must mosh generally, 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 all the time 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 take care of 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 type of an influence 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, they usually had Thanksgiving dinner with our prolonged households.
I used to be by no means a type of individuals [seeking adulation]. We’re employees, me and my spouse. However to search out out that I’ve been a part of individuals’s lives — that I’ve allowed them to reside this life-style for so long as they’ve — it’s been a fairly good journey.
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 at the moment. WHAT’S YOUR VIEW?
Consolidation breeds innovation. You see it when the main companies consolidate, then [they] lose individuals and people individuals go type smaller reserving companies. There are all the time individuals who need to create another existence.
HAD THERE BEEN MANY ATTEMPTS TO ACQUIRE THE WARPED TOUR BRAND OVER THE YEARS?
Yeah. Individuals have been like, “You may 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 12 months.”
IF YOU WERE IN YOUR TWENTIES TODAY WITH NO INFRASTRUCTURE, NO CONTACTS, AND NO CAPITAL, COULD YOU BUILD SOMETHING LIKE WARPED TOUR?
I feel 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 12 months, however I’d made so many individuals look good, and labored so onerous, and [had been] variety to individuals, that I used to be given a second likelihood.
Lots of people who are available [to the business now] might need the boldness, 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 prepared to take a leap of religion with me. Then that second 12 months, NOFX and Pennywise noticed it. I’m performing some work with will.i.am [right now], and he walked within the room and gave me a large hug and flipped proper again to that car 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 individuals gave me a second likelihood 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 bear in mind paying them $250. And now they get seven figures or extra for a pageant. That’s not going to suit my financial mannequin, however 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 feel these main corporations which are reporting report earnings ought to create a fund to assist youthful artists as total 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 provide slightly bit again to that artist [community] that we’re making an attempt to maintain alive? Our business ought to assist them slightly extra.Music Enterprise Worldwide
