Billboard/Live NationIf you didn't make it to this year's first-ever Billboard Hot 100 Festival, which was held Saturday and Sunday at Jones Beach in Long Island, New York, it's likely you'll get a chance to attend next year. Organizers pronounced the event -- whose unusual lineup featured everyone from New Politics, MisterWives, X Ambassadors and Cold War Kids, to Justin Bieber, Skrillex, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, The Weeknd and Jason Derulo -- a success.
New York's Newsday reported that the first day of the festival broke the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater's single-day attendance record, drawing over 17,000 fans. According to Billboard president John Amato, the crowd on Sunday broke that record.
"We wanted to break the single-day attendance record, we wanted to break the two-day attendance record, we've officially done both those things," Amato told ABC Radio on Sunday. "So we did that, we did it on the beach, we brought something new to the New York area...and the crowd has just been responding so positively to everything." He says he's "highly confident" there will be another one next year, adding, "Certainly [with] the success of this, we'd be foolish not to."
Of course, the wide-ranging bill, which featured three stages and which was heavy on hip-hop, EDM, pop and alternative pop/rock, meant that many fans were there just to see certain performers, so for some acts, winning over the crowd wasn't easy. Indie pop band MisterWives went on at 5pm on Sunday, a few hours before headliner Justin Bieber, and they ended up changing their set to engage the fans.
"I don't think this crowd really knew who we were," lead singer Mandy Lee told ABC Radio. "So I cut a song we were gonna do and was like, 'Let's do a cover to get everybody involved,' and you definitely gotta work a bit harder when you're playing something like this...when you're opening for Justin Bieber, you know!" MisterWives ended up performing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Uptown Funk" during their set.
As for why the lineup was so all over the place, Billboard's John Amato says, "We wanted to take a snapshot of what we felt popular music was the day, date and time that this festival hit."
"We're just trying to capture what is popular music at the moment and that's what we felt was so underserved," he explains. "There's a Coachella and there's a Lollapalooza and there's Governor's Ball. And we just thought, 'If I'm 16, 17 years old, or I'm part of the fan armies of some of the people we really engage with a lot as Billboard, what festival's for me?' And that's what we had in mind when we conceived this."
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