Vans Warped Tour 2025: Shade of the past or a welcomed return?

After a six-year absence, Vans Warped Tour is set to return in 2025, but will it live up to its cultural past?

In anticipation of its 30-year anniversary, the iconic alternative music festival Vans Warped Tour will be returning in 2025 across three major cities. Washington D.C. on June 14 and 15, Long Beach California on July 26 and 27 and Orlando, Florida on November 15 and 16. Welcoming the festival’s first appearance since 2019.  

With no lineup announced yet, the question is whether the festival will be showcasing up-and-coming artists like it used to, or if it will attempt to compete with the nostalgia adults feel at the When We Were Young festival that features alternative music they enjoyed while growing up. When We Were Young has primarily promoted older alternative bands, many of whom toured Warped Tour during their most popular years. 

Warped Tour began in 1995 and featured rising artists such as Deftones and No Doubt, traveling across 25 cities in the U.S. and Canada over a one-month period during their inaugural tour. Warped Tour later skyrocketed in popularity, capitalizing on the hottest breakout artists, ranging from Eminem to Paramore. The tour also visited Europe, Japan and Australia over the years. 

One cultural aspect of Warped Tour was the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands where thousands of bands competed at their local Warped Tour date and were judged by professionals in the music industry. The winners were invited to perform on the Ernie Ball Stage at Warped Tour that same year. This provided an intriguing opportunity for bands to expand their audiences and be scouted by record labels. Additionally, music lessons were offered for free to concert goers, ranging from drum lessons to songwriting lessons from Warped Tour artists. 

2018 is considered to be the last year of the traditional Warped Tour, as it saw a severe drop in popularity in 2019, where the tour stopped in only three cities. Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman stated “I think the community is, for many reasons, not as unified as it used to be” in a 2017 interview with Billboard. Lyman noted Warped Tour 2017 saw the 14- to 17-year-old demographic completely disappear, which the festival was marketed towards. 

2022 saw the rise of When We Were Young, a 2 to 3-day festival in Las Vegas showcasing some of the biggest alternative, emo and pop-punk bands of the 2000s mixed with up-and-coming artists. Headliners have included Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Paramore and Fall Out Boy. The festival has been wildly successful, with the name hinting towards marketing to young adults who grew up listening to these artists as teenagers.  

Since the emergence of When We Were Young, it’s unclear what direction Warped Tour will go in 2025, suggesting a need for innovation. Tickets for When We Were Young 2025 start at $325 for one day, with Panic! At the Disco and Blink-182 headlining. Warped Tour 2025 tickets start at $230 for two days, however the lineup has not been announced yet and the fans are unable to know what exactly they are paying to see. 

Few details have been announced regarding the content of Warped Tour 2025. In an interview with Rock Sound, Lyman said that the goal of next year’s Warped Tour is to pay homage to the past while also moving forward with new artists and a new generation of the alternative community. Lyman also announced the return of the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands, signaling a focus on smaller artists.  

The announcement of Warped Tour 2025 resulted in mixed reactions from fans, with some celebrating the return of the festival and others sharing their displeasure with the lack of dates across the country. Lyman emphasized the accessibility of affordable tickets in the Rock Sound interview, but how financially accessible is Warped Tour if many fans must travel across the country to attend? Younger demographics may be unable to afford tickets or travel, which could continue 2017’s trend of an older Warped Tour audience, possibly resulting in many of the same problems occurring again. 

While Warped Tour 2025 may serve as a soft launch return of the festival, it’s unclear whether the three-city tour featured in 2019 and 2025 will be the new standard or if potential future tours will return to traveling across the U.S. and Canada to regain popularity.  

Lyman, now 63 and an associate professor at the University of South California, attended the entirety of previous Warped Tours, making the prospect of Warped Tours with over 20 dates unlikely due to his age and schedule if he wants to attend all of them. 

With no lineup announced, it’s still too early to tell whether Warped Tour 2025 will be able to capture the same attraction it once had, especially competing against a similar festival. The return is a victory for both the alternative community and small artists looking to claim their place in the music scene.