Furnace Fest reduces ticket prices to save the festival – and it works

This year’s “Furnace Fest” hasn’t reached the sales targets required to turn a profit, even with a pretty full program. As reported from theprp, last October, organizers revealed a 2025 edition of the event, after initially deciding to end it after the previous year’s. Talent from the hardcore, metalcore, emo, punk, and other genres is scheduled to perform at the Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, Alabama from October 3rd to the 5th. But even though tickets for the event have been available since February, the number of attendees is still alarmingly low. The festival’s organizers have lowered prices in an attempt to attract more participants in an effort to counter that and ensure that the event can proceed as scheduled.

Shortly after, the founder of the festival elaborated a bit more on that statement.

Hey guys, my name is Chad Johnson and I started Furnace Fest 25 years ago right here in Birmingham, Alabama, as an expression of the local punk and hardcore scene. And with a desire to provide a space of belonging and connection for anybody and everybody,no matter how they viewed themselves or others or how they felt about religion or politics or anything else, it absolutely didn’t matter. They were welcomed at Furnace Fest.So to bring some clarification to our post this morning, ticket sales are lower than where we would like them to be, but they are moving. And so many of you already have supported us. So many of you already have joined on board.What we’re trying to say is please continue that. And for anyone who hasn’t already bought a ticket, would you, thanks to prices coming down now, would you consider buying one now instead of waiting to the end? That would be amazing. Your support means the world.We love you. We’re thankful for you. Have a great day.

Luckily, this approach worked.

Yesterday was our biggest ticket-selling day of the summer.

Thank you for the support!

So…

 Why wasn’t “The End of an Era” really the end?

 Did we miss out on a Holy Grail artist?

 Do you take a cut from band merch?

Got more questions? Drop them in the comments — I’ll do my best to answer every single one.

Quite a few really great questions came out of yesterday morning’s post and then the follow-up video and I wanted to just get out in front of all of them and address them as best as I can. So the first one and I think probably the most important one is why if last year was the end of an era did FurnaceFest not end? The short answer is fear. When I was on stage for Under Oath at like going from that couch and jumping off of the stage which is the first and only time I think I’ve ever jumped off a stage.

I had the thought come to me like there will never ever be a better finale to FurnaceFest than that. The fear part is a couple weeks later realizing that that my my real job wasn’t working out that I couldn’t see how I would provide for my family or how I would move forward as a professional without the festival and that’s a little embarrassing and a little hard to admit now but it is exactly why we’re here. Chad’s fear.

That said it isn’t what’s keeping us here and the community that came alongside FurnaceFest from the start is the same community that even when we announced yesterday like things aren’t where we need them to be comes up and supports us and yesterday ends up being our biggest ticket selling day of the summer. So it may have been my fear that brought this back but it is our collective support that keeps us here and yet I need to own that fear and I need to own that we’re here. So another question was is there a holy grail or was there a holy grail artist that we had in the pocket and then we lost? There wasn’t but I had hoped there would be.

So in my mind Andrew WK which I’ve reached out to every single year for the last five or however six years now maybe has been a no but I thought maybe this year would be different. Strong Arm, OG Norma Jean, Beloved, Me Without You, all these bands that I thought could be incredible that this might be the year of did not pan out. In my mind though this is my favorite lineup that we have ever put together and I think it’s astounding that we were able to get the bands that we do have and I’m blown away by it.

So yes was there meant to be it was called a silver surprise because we were going to you know pull out this crazy last minute surprise and all of your minds would have been blown and I’m here to say that the surprise is Chad was afraid and now is owning it and here we are. So the third question is do we charge do we receive a cut from bands merch and for the last four years we did 20% on soft goods so any clothing item and I regret that. I feel and felt throughout that process even though it’s a very common business model for venues festivals etc to do that now looking back I regret that we ever did that.

At the start of this year we decided we would not charge artists a merch cut this year or ever again so do I hope that somehow in light of this awkward social experiment that maybe that changes for all venues at all festivals everywhere and that artists retain 100% of what they make off of merch. I would love to see that and I’m sure they would too. There probably are many other questions that I haven’t addressed or that might still be in your head so please drop a comment below and I will do my best to answer every single one of them.

I love you guys, I can’t wait for October. See you in October, and I am sorry I do I feel like part of the part of the struggle with this video is that I’m I’m always like so happy on camera and I’m generally this happy in life, but I do also feel strongly that I have to own the fact that I could and should have done things very differently and I am sorry for all of you who I confused for all of you who I hurt for a couple of you especially that I hurt more than I may have hurt anyone else in my life and I am still working towards diligently everything that I said I would commit to and finish and I’m here I’m more passionate more excited more thrilled I feel more honored sometimes it’s the worst moments in our lives or the hardest times in our lives that prove who we really are and how much of an opportunity we have to rise above those so thank you for the support thanks for how amazing you are again I yeah drop comments I’ll respond if there’s anything else I can do to help please let me know thanks.