Pitchfork Fest Sponsor Tents Ranked (Worst To Best)
Remember how I called this "a newsletter (mostly) about music?"
Another Pitchfork Music Festival has come and gone, and despite some weather delays, I’d say it was, all in all, a successful one. I tend to be somewhat festival-averse (you would not catch me at Gov Ball or Lolla or– God forbid –Coachella. Unless you’re someone who wants to pay me handsomely to cover any of these, in which case my email address is gracerobinssomerville@gmail.com), but Pitchfork feels like an exception. In my experience, I’ve found it pretty well-organized, easy to prepare for and navigate, and generally less overwhelming than your average large-scale music festival. It also seems to be the somewhat rare music festival of its size that– at the risk of sounding like a total boomer –still feels like it’s actually about the music and isn’t just an influencer convention with a few DJ sets playing in the background. Pitchfork, in contrast, kind of feels like summer camp for music writers (mostly in a good way).
This was my second time attending the festival and my first time covering it. You can get the full, 3-day rundown of all the acts I saw, from the hidden gems to the headliners, over at The Alternative. But for this newsletter, I’ve chosen to do something a little different. Enough about the music and how it allegedly makes the people come together– let’s talk about what every music festival is really about: corporate sponsorship. Thus, I proudly present…
An Incomplete Ranking of the Pitchfork Music Festival 2023 Sponsor Tents (Worst To Best)
#SmartTox Pink House
During a lull on the first day, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to do some boots-on-the-ground inquiry into the faux-flower adorned pop-up by the Union Park basketball court. I approached one of the SmartTox representatives, who was sporting a glossy pin-straight blowout and a hot pink t-shirt that matched the neon #SmartTox sign on the pop-up house and the plastic blossoms framing the doorway– had I seen her walking the streets of Chicago and not at Pitchfork, I would’ve assumed she was on her way to a matinee screening of Barbie. I asked her, “What is this?” gesturing casually to the fake plant palace, and she explained that they were offering services like hair braiding and nail art, before adding that they were also giving free Botox consultations. Well technically, she never actually said “Botox”— “preventative injectables, you know, like for wrinkles?” was her exact phrasing. My further research into the #SmartTox house yielded endorsements from celebrity Pitchfork Fest attendees like Princess Nokia and JoJo.
I must say that standing in front of that pink-and-green plastic monument to the mainstreaming of invasive anti-aging cosmetics, the Instagram-Faceification of millennials and gen-z, and Pitchfork’s acquisition by Condé Nast did not make me feel all that optimistic, generally speaking. 2017 Jeff Rosenstock should’ve prepared me for this.
BeatBox Party Punch:
A BeatBox is essentially a very large juicebox filled with brownish liquid that tastes vaguely like MinuteMaid lemonade and bubblegum and gasoline and sweat and melted LipSmacker and terrible decisions. They were being sold for $14 each at a tent decked out in colors that I previously thought were only visible to hummingbirds and Disney Channel costume designers. Each one contains an 11.1% alcohol content. It is unwise to consume an entire BeatBox in under twenty minutes, especially in 80-degree weather, especially especially if you are about to sweat out half your body’s water content dancing to the electro-orchestral arrangements of British experimental duo Jockstrap, and then sweat out the other half of your body’s water content moshing to fiery Philly punks Soul Glo (not speaking from personal experience or anything). Though I cannot condone underage drinking, this is the kind of beverage that any self-respecting adult should have weaned themself off of by the time they reach the legal drinking age. Friends don’t let friends drink BeatBox.
Monster:
Look, I get that you need SOME form of free caffeine with which to fuel exhausted festival goers, but does it have to be Monster? I assume that Monster has some kind of longstanding partnership with Pitchfork Music Festival, not unlike Goose Island, but at a festival where you can’t even buy an iced coffee (unless you’re getting it from the VIP section) does the brand loyalty need to be that strong? At the risk of angering the denizens of r/EnergyDrinks and/or sounding like a Satanic-panicked Christian mom, I’m coming out as anti-Monster.
It’s not like they don’t give you any choices at all: at the Monster tent, you have your choice of classic (tastes like battery acid), lemonade (tastes like Crystal Lite mixed into battery acid), sugar-free mango (tastes like when you hit the vape and a little bit of vape juice gets in your mouth), and sugar-free strawberry (tastes like lollipop spit). Beggars can’t be choosers and obviously I wasn’t gonna turn down free caffeine during such a busy weekend; I picked the lesser of two evils and didn’t look a gift sugar-free Strawberry Monster in the mouth.
Funny Water:
This water’s a bit of a class clown. A real silly goose. To the Joker, it’s just regular water. All goofs aside, Funny Water’s branding was mostly about how much they hate hard seltzer (or really, any alcoholic beverage with bubbles). An interesting marketing strategy for sure. I must say though, that a canned, relatively cheap drink with a low but substantial alcohol content, a whisper of vaguely fruity flavoring, and a healthy hydration-to-buzz ratio is pretty ideal for a music festival sponsorship. They offered three variations of Funny Water– Blueberry, Watermelon, and Cucumber Mint. I don’t know if they had intentionally color-coordinated with the three Pitchfork Festival stages but either way it was a nice touch. Each one kind of tasted like flat LaCroix. Not so funny, but good for those who want to party responsibly. Definitely a safer alternative to the BeatBox.
Waterloo Sparkling Water:
Free water (sparkling or otherwise) is an MVP of any large-scale outdoor event. Though Waterloo isn’t a brand I feel particularly strongly about when it comes to sparkling water (I’m a Polar Seltzer girl myself), their tent ended up coming in clutch multiple times throughout the weekend. Their flavor offerings were usually not the best in their arsenal– I assume that Orange Cream and Ginger Citrus were the ones they could afford to give away for free, while the more desirable flavors were being sold at the Goose Island tents for $3 a can.
Haagen Dazs Mini Mart:
If there is one clear and obvious winner of Pitchfork 2023, it’s gotta be the Haagen Dazs booth, set up right next to our dear friends at #SmartTox. I’m generally averse to shilling for any corporation, but if you offer me free ice cream at a musical festival in the middle of the summer, who am I to complain? Accompanied by a rotating schedule of DJ sets and a cute-without-trying-too-hard-to-be-Instagrammable pop-up ice cream parlor, this was by far Pitchfork Fest’s most savvy sponsorship, one that we can only hope they bring back in 2024.
Bonus: What Happened To The Goose Island Limited-Edition Artist Beer?
For the uninitiated, each year Pitchfork Music Festival partners with Chicago Brewing company Goose Island to create a limited-edition beer in collaboration with one of the performers– complete with a punny title –and its proceeds go to benefit a charitable foundation that the festival has partnered with. That is, until this year, when all the Pitchfork Fest-related announcements came and went with no news of this year's addition to the lineup of past brews. In its absence, fans offered up ideas of their own (some highlights included Weyes Blood Orange Sour, Dragon Brew Warm Mountain I Believe In You, JPEGMAFIA Scaring The Hops, and MJ Lenderman’s You Have Bought Yourself A Beer). Pitchfork and Goose Island, looks like you both fumbled the bag this year.