After nearly a month of hearing rumors that Bowie is not playing at the High Line Festival, the Webmaster and I finally caved in and paid for a Bowienet subscription to see if the news blurb announcing that Bowie is not playing the High Line Festival was indeed hidden from the average site viewer with no subscription. And, it is. On January 22 there was a news item posted for only Bowienet members to see that announces that “it will not be possible” for Bowie to play the festival “due to ongoing work on a new project.” So there you have it. No Bowie at the High Line Festival.
I can’t believe we had to pay for a damned Bowienet subscription just to find out whether we’re buying tickets to New York City for May 10-19 or whether we’re making campground reservations in the Blue Ridge Mountains for those same dates. Unbelievable. It simply boggles my mind that an important bit of news about Bowie not playing the High Line Festival is hidden from the average person browsing the site. What possible reason could there be for doing that? The Webmaster and I love Bowie as much or more as the next obsessive superfans but stunts like this make us even less likely to continue to pay the yearly subscription fee for Bowienet. I can understand only allowing members to access the Bowienet blogs and message board, but to extort a mere $5.42 per month from fans just so they can know whether or not to put in for vacation days for a festival that is a mere three months away and that their favorite artist in the entire world may or may not be playing is just inexcusable. For God’s sake, the Coachella festival announced their lineup weeks ago and that festival takes place two weeks before the High Line Festival does.
Maybe the cloak-and-dagger act is because Bowie knows that attendance to the festival is going to suffer if he is not playing. Take the Webmaster and I as an example – we were going to drop well over $1000 to fly up to NYC, rent a hotel room, and buy festival tickets for three days just because Bowie was probably going to play. The only reason we were going to attend the festival was because of Bowie. Now we’re not. Our money will go to some national park along the Blue Ridge Mountains rather than to Bowie and the coffers of the High Line Festival. And I will bet my unopened copy of Live And Well that we are not the only ones ditching plans of attending the High Line Festival now that our reason to travel thousands of miles has been taken away.
If you want to see the news item for yourself, click here. I just saved you $5.42 this month. Don’t spend it all in one place.
