Just this morning, the annual This Is Hardcore festival was announced. This year's installment of the long-running Philadelphia live series will include a union of classic old head acts alongside some of the younger blood bands in the hardcore scene today.
Merauder, End It, Bayway, and On Broken Wings are among the bands scheduled to perform the weekend of the 8 and 9th of March at Underground Arts in Philadelphia.
It should be a bounce back for This Is Hardcore as last year's festival wasn't a financial sucess due to lower ticket sales, something that took its organizers by surprise after many years of growth.
Earlier this week, I spoke with This Is Hardcore founder Joe "Hardcore" McKay about the fest's evolution and business challenges. I appreciated his candor on all manners questioned.
Tell me about the change of venue and lessons learned from last year. What shifts have you made?
The move to bring the full scheduled fest to Underground Arts this year was the result of a number of things that were out of my hands. 2023 was a great year for Hardcore, and it was still in the post-COVID boom, but 2024 found DIY and independent promoters having to rise to the standards of AEG and Live Nation to keep the relationships or history with bands, as the corporate machine started seeing the value in the scene breaking beyond the underground.
When I am working on a TIHC bill, it's typically 9-12 months out for some reunions and headliners. The birth of new fests in other geographic areas is not uncommon but more have been scheduled and in this current 2025 year, there are the most in recent memory.
TIHC 2024 was in a bad spot with ticket sales by early June. My assumption was lower presales may still see a good walk-up as the prices across the board from the smallest show to the bigger fests have climbed. Was it COVID inflation finally hitting the hardcore scene? Was the American hardcore fest pizza cutting some slices smaller? Was our ticket price right but the amount of ticket fees insurmountable for the average person? These things sat with me.
I didn't have an alternate venue that would have been accessible to those who booked flights/hotels and would have been a miserable outcome if we moved it to a city 50+ miles from here, so I rode it out and we took a loss. I take full accountability for it and still working through that as we speak.
Though I've never been there before, I have been told Underground Arts is a cool spot for hardcore shows in Philly.
Moving onto 2025, it would be a nightmare to rebound in the same room. When a fest doesn't keep the same energy up, in the arena of social media and common knowledge its immediate seen as in decline and few agents/managers or bands would see their position on TIHC 2025 as "a good look."
I'm a few days from the 28th anniversary of booking my first show. This has always been the case. Something go wrong, small crowd, bad this or that and its spread quicker than a success story does. My choices in alternate venues are limited in the city, the guesswork as to what a TIHC in the surrounding counties or over the bridge in Southern New Jersey is so uncertain, I stayed with the most consistent thing I can count on... A club that is 650 cap, a stagedive friendly no barricade room I've been booking for almost 12 years now.
The Underground Arts found its place in TIHC as we restructed the fest post-COVID was to bring the fest to 2 days at the Franklin Music Hall and a Friday at Underground Arts. The bills in 2022-2024 were some of my favorite bills I've done in recent years.
The room in Underground Arts still lights up, and I even saw that at the most recent sold out Comeback Kid tour date, I was exciting thinking about how great its going to be to do 2 nights of TIHC there. I did 2 nights of American Nightmare there in 2014 and it was exhilarating. I feel that the energy captured in a small room with great amenities is the best outcome to continue doing TIHC.
Who are some of the key people behind the scenes that helped you this time out?
I usually have Bob Wilson (Rebirth Records, FYA Fest) and Greg Falchetto (Hold My Own, The Mongoloids) in on everything but I pulled inward and needed to clear the table of "what we could do if it was the Franklin Music Hall" thoughts that pop up at every move of TIHC 2025. The band budget in comparison to previous years is paltry and took some direct hits early on from agents and bands who weren't interested in the offers as they were scaled down.
I seldom cite Max Morton as he is usually in the shadows always up to something, but as we've been working together for almost 15 years now, he and I knocked alot out of the 2 days. The game of "how about this band?" is one we play together whenever there is a big show, a bill that needs loading up or just talking about possibilities, so its just what I do naturally every day with him.
Rich Hall's presence in throwing his take into the mix was felt and with the upcoming benefit shows, I was laughing at the thought that he would be proud of all the guys working together for the benefit and also the upcoming Hellphyra fest leaving his impact on us all.
Once I got to about 60%-75% of the bill forming, I brought in Lord Stuckey of Suicide Eyes, Fools Game, Last Man Out, etc., to give me an eye and thoughts. I want this TIHC to have the flavor of what we did when we started. Bring some bands worthy of a few hours in a car. Maybe not something the whole world has to fly to and all the stuff that comes with accomodations.
There are people who look at TIHC as leaning into the classic side of things in terms of bookings. How do you see it? Is that a fair assessment?
TIHC started in 2006 because of the audacious move by the teams involved in Hellfest to grow the fest further in a small stadium in Trenton, New Jersey. Seeing how quickly all the local promoters—including R5 productions—and others found rooms and bills to supply the crowds who paid for hotels and such was the "aha moment" that Philly might be a viable location for a fest.
TIHC in 2006 was lucky to get Terror to do a weekend run with Brockton and Philly to headline the Saturday. We were able to hear of an H20 tour that had Fearless Vampire Killers (pre-Cro-Mags John Joseph and crew doing a Mags set) on it. The rest of the bill was the up and comers and such.
So, although down the line I am aware that we brought a lot of bands back into the equation, it was only on the strength of the opening bands that were growing upstarts like Blacklisted, Iron Age, Cold World, Ceremony, and many many others. The berth given by the bands who drew the young kids made possible the 2010 reunion of Sheer Terror, for example.
But as a kid who grew up on hardcore, and as we have a captive young audience, I wanted to seed in the older bands and it took awhile but we got Killing Time and Breakdown to be more accessible and others as well. As the time moved on, the value as a headliner wasn't focused on the older bands, but as a matter of fact, the younger bands weren't as in demand than the reunion stuff that finally started to come our way.
The balance of newer bands, the up and comers, the bands who kill it each weekend, and the old guard, is what I believe made TIHC special. As this formula has spread here and there, it doesn't weaken what we did, but does affect the ability to repeat the same process or outcome. Thus we are about at a smaller room for 2 days, not 3. This is the smallest iteration and attempt at TIHC. What will be, will be in the hands of the supporters and if we still have enough to bring people into the room.
How closely do you follow the other fests and how has that complicated TIHC in terms of market share?
Early on in TIHC, I was getting more acquainted with spreadsheets and I had one that covered what most fests booked at the time. The lineups were pretty close in line aside from regional differences, where as today, the options seems to be determined by what old band the kids just found out about or the new band that are starting to build reliable followings.
The pizza (hardcore fests) are for the most part going to stay the same size, but as in the case with Tied Down, much moreso that TIHC. I dont blame someone from Ohio, Michigan, etc. for stepping away from a 8-12 hr drive to Philly and a hotel when they got Tied Down right there. Each fest has its own financial situations that make what they do work for them and with the interest growing from AEG/Live Nation we will see more fests pop up propped up under the fiscal support of these corporate entities.
The market share is already shifting towards the inevitable outcome of the bands whose outlook is to grow beyond what the "scene" can do and into the bigger ocean of things. This isn't a downside, it will just be a shift change in the guard as to who is up at the top of bills that are 1000 cap or more and who are still lingering in the club headlining tours.
The issue currently is that the agent with a repetoire of hardcore, metal, and pop that book their artists in club to big room sizes are dealing head on with the big companies and they are by my estimate, happily receiving more lucrative offers on that end slowly moving bands up to the big league. In turn, that makes scalability something that is seen as a loss of revenue, versus constant growth whilst maintaining a connection to the smaller rooms that may no longer have the resources to bring the bands in.
The newer bands coming up are also often sold at an inflated value as part of package tours which last year was proven as many tours in the fall of 2024 weren't as strong as hoped. It falls back on the fests in some respect as bands get paid decent or better at fests and this gets carried into tour packages where the newer bands despite interest haven't built a following that is entirely coming because of their presence on a bill.
This all filters back into the question of TIHC market share. We are 'oldest" on the block, so to speak, so perspectives shift variously. I'm under the impression that new bands who want to build their name up will still love the opportunity. The bands who have played in recent years certainly aren't looking to come back after what was posted on Reddit and elsewhere as far from the glory of previous years.
What value TIHC holds is by all acounts eye of the beholder kind of thing. This year will be regionally focused with a balanced bill across 2 days, some surprises, some up and comers, and each band holds value in some way to the people who are connected to the bands playing and thats about all I can do.
What wasn't done right is 2024 is over, what I've got coming up for this summer has to be the focus for the fest and moving forward after not bringing home the gold medal last year.
Talk to me a bit about the bands towards the top of the bill this year.
I have long been a supporter of Merauder and we've booked them on multiple previous TIHCs and I've booked them locally as well. I was aware they were looking to play alot more frequently and I was happy to secure them as the Saturday headliner and the first band I truly secured formally.
From there, I tried a few of the stalwart killers who top many other bills but the size of our venue limits of financial capabilities and we were turned away quite a bit. A made a call to my man [End It vocalist] Akil and he showed interest and their team was excited to bring End It to TIHC in the Friday headliner spot.
Focusing regionally, NYC, Baltimore are the two main cities and securing two of the finest in this way gave me more ideas to build from. The inertia behind Bayway right now it was already hard of thinking of bands who could play and keep the energy up was limited, so we assigned Bayway the spot right before End It.
As we continued down the lineup, Shattered Realm is releasing Broken Ties, Spoken Lies on vinyl via Trustkill, DAZE, and Takedown Records. We decided it was only right to promote the release with all the other stuff happening was to do a full set front to back of the record. Chris, Alex, and Al will be up on stage with us and we will have a cast of guest singers to do the set.
I feel confident the 1-2 punch of Friday's ending matches the energy of the Saturday's and we've got something excited, different and the balance of the old school with the new school.
What are some misconceptions people have about This Is Hardcore, and of putting together a hardcore festival in general?
The hardest thing to explain to people is that unless you're bankrolled by investors, sponsors, and other entities who have some form of profit sharing, it's a gamble with the odds of success narrowing each year as more competitors and new elements enter the field. AEG/Live Nation is able to dominate if it chooses, but its not to say they are going to pump endless money into something without a ROI.
It was easier to some degree in 2006-2011 at the Starlight Ballroom with a capacity of 1200, or even Union Transfer on Thursdays from 2013-2018 to get bands to play, get paid but not need a Brinks truck to bring them in. Pay by scale in theory should make it more evenhanded, but the issue will be each band/agent/management may have goals or expectations that are still beyond what is offered and you just have to push on through all the "noes" til you find something that you can work with.
Money alone may not make everything easy. Tomorrow if I hit the lottery, I could offer the bands whatever they wanted, but they'd still look at 2024 and think it would be a bad look. The only step forward is to go back to the basics, do what makes sense and has worked in the past and don't look at what everyone else is doing as each festival has its own strengths and outlooks and trying to copy from someone else's notes too long will not allow for you to build something that organically could be an interesting new take on the whole thing.
To some degree, working on Keystone Jam is the great model to determine what things may work at a smaller size of TIHC. Now in 2025, Keystone Jam is growing and we will have to inject the right resources and bands into the mix to keep it where it was from last year. Things shift, and what was proven for another fest or market may fall short if the timing isn't right. Timing, the balance of a bill, and understanding what the new things coming up are before everyone copies it is hard to master.
I put Bob Wilson, Greg Falchetto, Jon Scanlon, and Jimmy Edgemen at the high-water mark right now of knowing all these things and it's why what they do is at the apex of the whole thing. Money can't buy everything, but it can create an expensive hunk of shit if it's not applied properly and tons of the big corporate fests still haven't learned that yet.
Despite the focus on the financial loss of 2024, I'm still doing what I can, with what resources and experience I have. I will continue to do what I think is best until I can't or it is proven that people aren't interested any longer. I'm hopeful that we will have a great weekend this year and that the ball will roll in the right direction if a positive outlook is maintained.
Money is far from the biggest incentive for me to keep doing this and I genuinely feel like there is still a place and room for TIHC as things change. It would be wrong to give up as much as it would be wrong if we didn't have a year that kicked our ass. The greatest lessons come from the losses I've made and I've returned every time I've been knocked on the ground.
Thanks to everyone for everything, always every year.
***
This Is Hardcore 2025 will go down on August 8-9 at Underground Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2 day passes go on sale Monday, March 23rd, at this link.
