In 1995, former Goldenvoice exec Kevin Lyman changed the modern tour landscape by infusing Southern California punk rock with skateboarding and X Games culture to create the Warped Tour. The fest became one of the longest-running summer tours in history (it wrapped in 2019) and provided the stage for bands like Sublime, No Doubt, Blink-182, My Chemical Romance, Something Corporate, Fall Out Boy, Paramore and many more to break into the mainstream. On any given day, the festival’s lineup shuffled, and fans had to arrive early to ensure they saw their favorite artist.
Though Lyman stepped away from that scene in recent years (he‘s currently an associate professor at USC‘s Thornton School of Music), he felt the time was right to bring a new version of what worked so well back — with a twist. Lyman along with Eric Tobin of Hopeless Records and Mike Kaminsky of KMGMT (who also teaches at USC) are pushing the spirit of Warped forward.
Tobin and Kaminsky have been involved with the Warped Tour in various capacities over the years and understood the festival’s ethos. They’ve also worked together as Hopeless signed KMGMT’s artists over the years. When the pair first conceived the idea of Summer School, they wanted to bring an experience outside of the commercialized festivals that dominate the current landscape.
“The conversation that started between Mike and me was how do we create something like Warped with it being gone?” Tobin says. “The conversation was that maybe we should try this branded idea again and start from scratch.”
“We weren’t sitting around going ‘What the world needs now is another festival tour,’” Kaminsky says. “When Kevin retired Warped, Eric and I were wondering ‘Where are these developing bands going?’ We’re all hitting a glass ceiling. After COVID, we had all these bands that were streaming like crazy. They’re going viral and there’s all this interest in them. But there’s nowhere to put them on tour.”
Lyman, who is still tapped into the promoter and sponsorship world, saw there was a demand for this type of tour. He quickly discovered that no one had brought this type of festival idea since Warped concluded and they realized that their idea could work. But Lyman initially pushed Tobin and Kaminsky off of starting a festival because he felt the timing wasn’t right. Last September, that changed.
“They didn’t want to replace Warped Tour, but develop up-and-coming acts,” Lyman says. “There hasn’t been a lot of developers out there. We’ve had to reengage the younger fans in live events since there were several years that kids didn’t go to live shows. We had to give this a shot. Summer School was a great name for this event. Basic is the best.”
With Lyman working as a mentor and Kaminsky and Tobin as curators, the trio created a tour focused on a lineup comprising independent artists on independent labels, all while working with independent promoters. Summer School’s founders also kept what they call an affordable ticket price by using sponsorship money to cover most costs. In some markets, the price is $35, which is a bargain compared with mainstream fests that cost, at minimum, hundreds of dollars.
The spirit of the Warped Tour is still prominent, but unlike the parking lots and festival grounds it invaded over the years, Summer School takes place indoors.
“With the size of the rooms, we wanted to keep this contained and it’s too hot outside,” Tobin says (a notion Kaminsky agrees with). “A lot of artists and fans were like, let’s do this first year in a place that we can control the experience and make it feel packed out.”
Many of the artists who are on the bill haven’t played in several thousand-person-cap rooms. Summer School allows them to get their metaphorical sea legs in front of a supportive audience. The success has been in the engagement. Merch sales have steadily grown and the artists noticed that they’ve been gaining new fans after every show.
“This tour has introduced us to more new listeners than we’ve experienced,” Devin Papadol of Honey Revenge says. “Not only have the crowds been incredible, but we get to perform alongside our friends every night. Summer School is filling a void in the scene that’s been missing. We’re so thankful to be a part of this special live music environment.”
“The Summer School tour has been such a refreshing start to our touring year,” Bonnie Fraser of Stand Atlantic says. “We had such a big amount of time off, for us anyway, and being able to kick-start our year with Summer School has brought us back to why we love what we do and why we started doing it.” For Fraser, the festival is reminiscent of an era where festivals felt more intentional in the booking and less about business. “We as a band are proud to be a part of something bigger and thoughtfully put together with genuine intentions other than just another slapped together touring package everyone has seen 100 times over.”
Just like Warped, the lineup shuffles day to day, which not only the bands support but the founders say judging by the filled rooms at the beginning of the day, the attendees do as well.
“So much is about the vibe and the community,” Kaminsky says. That was part of the guiding spirit that made Warped a summer fixture for 25 years. It has translated to the bands as well. On their social media platforms, the bands can be seen sharing photos and videos of group hangs and behind-the-scenes footage of what’s been going on.
Despite the larger promoters always lingering in the background, Summer School has a punk rock mentality of staying small and happy to remain at its size while focusing on artist development, with the hope that the artists on the tour will return to the same venues to headline them on their own.
“If everything’s great, we can catapult bands up to go to bigger festivals and get paid way more money,” Kaminsky says. “That’s not the space we’re trying to compete in.”
“What this community has always been about is cultural currency more than it’s been about the hits,” Tobin says. “It’s a left-of-center kid that’s looking for identity, and you can get to go to that show and hit that barricade. The idea of being another piece of that ongoing legacy and creating a new generation for it. The bigger it is, the better it is for everybody.”
Summer School wraps on Aug. 17 at City National Grove in Anaheim, and the planning for Year 2 has already begun. Despite not taking a salary for this year’s tour, Kaminsky and Tobin are excited to see the tour grow.
“It’s been really rewarding, not just for us, but for the managers, the agents and the artists. The most rewarding part is working with really good people that we really love and share mutual respect. And I think these days, that’s sometimes harder to come by.”
