Greetings from Lisbon, Portugal! It's much cooler here than it currently is in Las Vegas, and I'm not just talking the temperature.
All I need to do is step outside my tent, and I'm looking at a bunch of street dancers performing an impromptu routine; about 20 regular Joes (or regular Joses?) at a nearby platform working out their own footwork number; a few brave souls scaling a structure only to throw themselves off it (and land on air mattresses); folks carting around inflatable La-Z-Boys; a European street-front facade that actually houses vendors and services; a brassy pub band working out a traditional tango tune on a stairway; and on-foot vendors wearing mobile beer dispensers that look like the Ghostbusters' proton packs.
This unusual but lively sight represents the vision of Roberto Medina, founder of the international Rock in Rio festival that will touch down on the Las Vegas Strip in May 2015.
The Brazilian entrepreneur's big dream back in 1983: to organize a joyous musical event following the recent democratization of his country, where dictatorial rule had scared away visitors (and, specifically, touring musicians) and demoralized the population. He had only previously staged one concert—at 33, he talked Frank Sinatra into playing a Rio stadium, and the subsequent show drew 144,000—and he never had designs to become the next Bill Graham or change music culture a la Woodstock.
"I wanted to draw 1.5 million people," says Medina during an interview on the eve of Rock in Rio Lisbon's four-day festival weekend. "I wanted to start a movement."
He did just that in 1985 at the first Rock in Rio, which drew the largest crowd ever for a music event and became, in his view, a national party along the lines of Carnival. He would later expand to Lisbon and Madrid, and over the years, the 13 festivals have drawn a total of 7 million people. He's hoping to add another 325,000 or so to that tally next May, when he finally breaks into the U.S. market in Las Vegas.
"I believe it will take America by surprise," he says.
Except for me, because I'm looking at it right now. Since Rock in Rio has never happened in America, I came to Lisbon for the background and, of course, the experience—a key word, for Medina isn't into making a lineup-leading or genre-specific music festival. He wants an experiential gathering where the music of the times may be the chief component, but it's not the exclusive one. Which is why his festival offers the street performers, the dance lessons, the jumping attraction, the "Rock Street," the tango-minded oompah band and the corporate-friendly setting that allows Heineken to sell to attendees beyond the vending tents. Many of those elements will be incorporated into the Vegas version, which Medina claims will have "10 times more sophisticated production" than this weekend's event. So maybe I will be taken by surprise.
Medina also wants to be a groundbreaker with regards to corporate sponsorship. For one, he wants their money to keep prices down; the 1985 edition cost him $50 million to produce. He says music festivals "are a shy brand in the U.S., but the U.S. is not a shy market." He talks a lot about brands because he's also the president of Artplan Holding Company, which began as one of the largest advertising companies in Brazil. Upon visiting Coachella, which he sees as the leading music festival in America, he marveled at how little branding was involved. But where Coachella's promoter Goldenvoice has a history in the Southern California punk scene—hardly a corporate-friendly environment (though Coachella does feature some sponsors)—Medina is an ad man, albeit an untraditional one, so he's got no shame in that game. The 2013 Rock in Rio in Brazil brought in $52 million in sponsorship money.
"The difference between regular music festivals and Rock in Rio is we concentrate on communication," says Rock in Rio Executive Vice President Roberta Medina, who is Robert Medina's right-hand woman for the fest (as well as his daughter). The word "communication" is even more integral to Medina than "brand," because he sees the former creating the latter.
And in the case of Rock in Rio, that "communication" creates jobs, philanthropy and social awareness. Take, for instance, the very spot I'm sitting right now: Parque de Bela Vista, one of the largest parks in Lisbon. Medina scoped out the site during an exploratory visit in 2003. The surrounding community was depressed and not well-regarded, but Medina saw not only a place to hold the next edition of his event, but an opportunity to revitalize the park and, subsequently, the neighborhood, too. He added infrastructure to the facility and made it more attractive. Roberta Medina calls the effort a "reactivation of the park," and this weekend, it hosts its sixth Rock in Rio. It hosts other events, too, thanks to the bathrooms and lights and sheds Rock in Rio permanently installed.
The parcel of land just north of Circus Circus, where Rock in Rio USA will be held, is decidedly not a park (though it may reside in a depressed area of the Strip), so it's a little difficult to gauge from the Lisbon site how the festival will come to life in Las Vegas—especially with 10 times the production. Cue partners Cirque du Soleil, which talked Medina into giving up New York City and Los Angeles as locations for Rock in Rio USA, in favor of Las Vegas; MGM Resorts, which will provide the infrastructure for those 33 acres on the north end of the Strip; and the Yucaipa Companies, which will build the fest's City of Rock, boasting three Rock Streets (themed for America, England and Brazil).
They'll have their work cut out for them. Even if they best every other Rock In Rio, they'll have to use considerable imagination if they want to match or surpass the current local benchmark for experiential festivals and transportive production: Electric Daisy Carnival, to be held in three weeks. One only has to look at the main stage here in Lisbon—a complexly constructed structure known for its convex steel sheets—to see how far it has to go to match the fantastical one at EDC.
But Rock in Rio has its own trump cards, acquired over its 29 years. During the preparation of the first Rock in Rio, Mick Jagger, who was visiting Brazil at the time, heard about the "City of Rock" someone was building, and asked to see what it looked like.
Tonight, his band, the Rolling Stones, will perform facing another City of Rock, delighting the sole sellout crowd (thus far) at Parque de Bela Vista this week. It will be one of only a handful of music festivals the 51-year-old rock 'n' roll institution has ever signed on to play—and rumor has it former President Bill Clinton may join the Stones on the saxaphone.
When the festival gates opened shortly after 3 p.m. today, hundreds of ticketholders adorned in shirts with the famous tongue-and-lips logo bolted for the main stage to stake out their spots against the front crowd barriers. The band doesn't even go on until 11:45 tonight. Just goes to show, no matter how much of an experience you offer, music fans will be music fans.
And this music fan is going to stop writing now to join them—though I might stop by the air mattress jumping complex first.
