|
Free for all concert with Ozzy
07/02/2007 09:27 - (SA)
Los Angeles - British heavy metal pioneer Ozzy Osbourne surprised the music industry on Tuesday with plans to stage this year's Ozzfest, his annual US summer
hard-rock extravaganza, as a first-of-its kind free event.
The 12th annual rock festival headlined by the onetime reality TV star and self-described Prince of Darkness will kick off July 27 in the Los Angeles area and play 25 dates, Osbourne and his wife/manager, Sharon, told a news conference.
The announcement, which opened with Osbourne spray-painting
the word "FREE" in black letters across an Ozzfest 2007 poster,
came on the first day of the Concert Industry Consortium, an
annual gathering of tour promoters and producers.
Experts said Ozzfest, one of the marquee summer rock events
of the past decade, would be the first US festival music tour
to offer free admission.
'Phenomenal idea'
"It's something that's never been done before," Gary
Bongiovanni, editor of the concert trade publication Pollstar,
said of the announcement. "It's a phenomenal idea."
Asked to explain the economics of the tour, which last year
grossed more than $19m with ticket prices averaging about $45 to $50, Ozzfest's founder and namesake joked, "It's free to come in, but you're gonna have to pay to get out."
Overhead costs being borne by tour sponsors
Ozzfest 2007, preceded by Osbourne's own European tour this
spring, will be produced as it has been in the past by leading
concert management company Live Nation, with overhead costs
being borne by tour sponsors, organisers said.
Tickets will be made available to fans free of charge,
mostly through online outlets, and all of the acts, including
Osbourne's band, will play for free. But bands taking part will
be permitted to sell their own merchandise and CDs.
'Business as usual'
"It's business as usual, except it's free. We want to
encourage new music and new talent," Sharon Osbourne said,
adding that Ozzfest would stick to its formula of all-day,
outdoor performances by hard-rock bands on multiple stages.
"We're not about to have 20 chanting monks. We're not going
to save the forest," she said. "We just rape and pillage and go
home."
Asked whether this year's Ozzfest might be the last for
Osbourne, who was rumoured to be considering retirement, she and
her husband - sporting dark glasses and a cross around his
neck - both snapped in unison, "No way!"
'Time to give something back'
"He's been touring 30, 35 years, and he's done very well,
and it's time to give something back," she said. Escalating
costs would otherwise have forced the tour to raise ticket
prices again this year, she explained in press materials.
Osbourne, the long time front-man for heavy metal group Black
Sabbath, said he was nearly finished recording a new solo album
due out the last week of June.
Sharon Osbourne, who co-starred with her husband and their
children on the popular MTV reality show The Osbournes, said
they planned to unveil the talent line-up for the summer fest
in about two weeks, along with a list of confirmed tour dates.
- Reuters
|
South Africa
