I sing and play guitar in a DIY pop band. We’ve been touring for the past few years, and have recently broken into the festival scene. Big festivals have grown explosively in the American music industry over the past two decades. Festivals like Coachella and Electric Zoo combine the summer camp and Agamben’s camp, creating a space where social norms are temporarily suspended. But these festivals are not rule-free — they are spaces where the behavior of musicians and fans is strictly regulated by a for-profit authority.

Corporate music festivals are winning because they’ve innovated a contract that appeals to both the creative class and the consumer class, all while channeling profits and power into the hands of capital. The highly capitalized industry behind festivals has made this space the ascendant American experience of live music.

Huge outdoor festivals have been around in Europe for a long time, but the US is catching up fast. Pop-punk and alt-rock traveling festivals like Lollapalooza and the Van’s Warped Tour took off in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, the traveling festivals had petered out, and regional festivals like Coachella became the new model.