Its Summer, Time To Get Warped!

Many music fans do not know what Warped Tour is and the history behind its annual

summer festival extravaganza. The tour, which was created in 1994 by Kevin Lyman and named

after the short-lived Warp Magazine, began when he took a mass handful of his favorite punk

and ska bands, such as Sublime and Bad Religion and shoved them on a tour bus embarking

them on what turned out to be an unsuccessful dismal of a music festival. Kevin was a veteran

producer for the California-based promoters Goldenvoice for 12 years prior to the development

of Warped. He has toured with Lollapalooza and put together events such as the Swatch Impact

Tour and the Vision Skate Escape (Pettigrew, p.80). With the downfall of the outcome of the

first year, there was hesitant if there will be another tour the following summer. “When I started

the tour in 1995, it was a little bit more about the barbecuing and the gambling, and hanging

out,” says Lyman (Kung Fu, 2004). Kevin was approached the following year in 1995 by the

Vans Shoe Company to help promote a skateboarding festival. Seeing it as an opportunity to not

hurt to pass up, he took the chance to put together their ideas into his Warped Tour, and thus one

of the longest reigning carnivals of summer featuring collaborations of punk-rock music and

extreme sports in North America was born (Kevin Lyman, 2004).

The tour which is generally held in outdoor venues, (i.e. parking lots or large fields)

consists of several stages and other erected tents for convenient of foods and beverages as well as

band merchandises, independent record labels, and non-profit organizations. Over the years,

more than one hundred bands have played during the annual summer months across various

venues in the United States. To help with the consistency of the bands performing, each band

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would play up to 30 minutes on approximately 10 different stages, with several bands playing all

at once. The two “Main” stages generally are for the bigger popular bands on the bill. The full

venue area is mocked up to prevent active stage acts to disturb other stage performances across

the venue. For instance, a band playing punk music cannot cause interrupting across the venue

to disturb another stage performing an acoustic set. On a typical day bands would start

performing no earlier than 11:00am and ending the day around 9:00pm. To help find which

stage a favorite band is playing on, there is a large inflatable board placed in the middle of the

venue which provides the listings of the bands and their performance times. The Warped Tour is

not only a place to see the bands but it also has become a fan fair where fans can get the

opportunity to meet with their favorite bands after each performance to interact and sign

autographs.

While the tour started out playing mostly ska and punk bands, it has since progressed to

cater towards the genre of punk rock, metal-core and post-hardcore bands. Several years after

its inception, the Warped Tour went international in 1998 to include venues in Australia, Japan

and Europe. With the coinciding of each tour, Lyman partnered with SideOneDummy