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Lollapalooza Expands Overseas

Lollapalooza will continue to expand in 2013. With the festival’s most recent run in Chicago just finishing, the founder of Lollapalooza Perry Farrell announced that the festival will add dates in Israel next year.
 
The Israel Lollapalooza will take place Aug. 20-22, 2013, in Tel Aviv. Yarkon Park, located in the urban area of Tel Aviv, will host the musical acts.
 
Yarkon Park is a popular destination for tourists and is visited by about 16 million people every year. In the past it has been the location of a few big concerts featuring artists like Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Metallica and Elton John.
 
“Israel is an incredibly sophisticated music market,” Marc Geiger of WME Entertainment said in a statement. “Consumers have a voracious appetite for entertainment, yet there has never been a major music festival. To me, this combination screams Lollapalooza.”
 
Lollapalooza, a festival that began in 1991 as a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction, a rock band in which Farrell is the singer, continued into a rock festival and eventually settled in Chicago’s Grant Park in 2005. Then the festival expanded with dates in Santiago, Chile in 2011 and São Paulo, Brazil in 2012.
 
With all the expansion though, the show has kept its urban theme. Unlike other festivals, Lollapalooza does not usually procure large open unpopulated sites. The festival focuses on bringing musicians and fans to the city to enjoy nightlife with easy access to venues so the party doesn’t stop when the music does.
 
“Our angle and our attitude, why we’re different than any other festivals, we plan our party right within the city limits,” Farrell said to the Wall Street Journal. “A lot of other festivals have it out in the wilderness and it’s fun and it’s nice but the accommodations suck and the food is even worse,” he said. “Wherever we go, you have close proximity to your hotel and there’s always clubs, so you have all these beautiful places throughout the city for the after-parties.”
 
Farrell is confident about the quality of the Israel show and the future possible expansion ideas Lollapalooza might achieve. He let one lead be known in a recent statement to CNN.
 
"We got a call from Jerusalem, the Holy City, and they want Lollapalooza to be there, too," Farrell said. "But it's going to start in Tel Aviv, and we're going to do something in Jerusalem. The mayor's like, 'We want to bring young people, we want to change the perception of Jerusalem.' So we're even talking with them about it."

Photo Courtesy of Rolling Stone

Photo Courtesy of Stereogum.com

(Main Photo Courtesy of dancingastronaut.com)

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