Innings Festival will come back to Arizona for a third year in 2020.

"We'll be back for sure," says Tim Sweetwood of C3 Presents, the team behind Lollapalooza and the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

A music festival aimed squarely at baseball fans who flock to Arizona for spring training, Innings drew 25,000 people to Tempe Beach Park on March 2 and 3 for a lineup topped by Incubus and Eddie Vedder.

REVIEW: Eddie Vedder brings 'A Star is Born,' Cubs manager to Innings Festival

That daily average, Sweetwood says, is up from last year, when the festival drew 33,000 over three days.

"I think it’s going as well as we could hope," he says. "I mean, I can’t speak to the financials, but it’s going in the right direction. We’ve got a great relationship with the city. And the city’s really happy to have us. We want to come back. We enjoy the spot. We appreciate the weather compared to anywhere else in the country."

Sweetwood laughs, then adds, “Maybe we’ll just keep doing the festival for the weather alone and not even worry if anybody shows up, right?”

2020 Innings date is TBA

There's no date yet for next year's festival. They'll have to work that out with the City of Tempe.

"But we liked being on the first weekend in March," Sweetwood says, "After year one, we definitely wanted to be earlier in spring training. We lost out on some of those players and fans because we were the last week of spring training. Hopefully, we’ll be able to announce those dates soon."

As much as they attempt to cater to the needs of those spring training fans, they can't afford to wait until the games are over to start the music.

REVIEW: Incubus headlines Innings Festival with hits by Sheryl Crow, the Baseball Project

"If we had doors at 5 p.m. and the show went to 11," Sweetwood says, "it just doesn’t work our financial model."

And working that financial model is the key to keeping festivals alive.

The backstory of Innings Festival

When Innings launched last year, it was just five months after Superfly, whose other festivals include the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and Outside Lands in San Francisco, launched the Lost Lake Festival at Steele Indian School.

Lost Lake was scheduled to return last year but organizers pulled the plug just two months after going on sale.

"In general, festivals take a few years to establish themselves and get on the right path," Sweetwood says, "just because you learn the market, learn what kind of folks should be there."

And what kind of folks are those?

The kind that show up to spring training.

"That was the vision from the beginning," Sweetwood says, "to provide entertainment for folks that are out there seeing these spring training games. The game doesn’t last 12 hours a day. It’s a two-and-a-half-to-three hour game and then they have nothing to do. Of course, we want people locally from Arizona to come. But the ideal customer for us is someone who loves both music and baseball."

Two years in, they've definitely hit that demo.

"We’re seeing a lot of out-of-town sales, Sweetwood says. "And with those out-of-town sales, they match the cities that the baseball teams are coming from."

Who goes to Innings Festival?

Chip Aubry flew in from Chicago for the festival this year.

As he was watching Liz Phair in his Cubs hat, Aubry said, "This is a killer festival. This is our winter Lollapalooza."

Sweetwood laughs when he hears Aubry's quote and says, "I’ll take that every day of the week."

In its first year, Innings had a smaller third stage. This year, it went down to just two stages with a five-minute gap between artists.

"One of the cool things about Innings is that if you are the dedicated psycho music fan, you could technically see every single band on every day if you really wanted to push it."

Of course, those dedicated psycho music fans would miss out on all the fun baseball-related activities at Innings.

There's more than just music

This year featured player appearances by MLB all-stars Roger Clemens, Shawn Estes, Brett Saberhagen, Huston Street and Jake Peavy at Speed Pitch, and heavy hitters Eric Byrnes and Matt Williams at the Batting Cage. Rollie Fingers signed autographs.

And this year brought a new attraction: Off the Mound with Ryan Dempster, an on-site talk show featuring interviews and performances by special guests including MLB players past and present, along with artists from the festival.

"If someone wants to take a break from the music, that’s something they’re doing," Sweetwood says. "If their sole reason for being there is baseball, they can go check out the show we created and stuff like that."

They're likely to keep it at two stages next year. It helps them keep the ticket prices lower than most festivals.

As Sweetwood says, "The reason Lollapalooza is in the $300-plus range is because you get 140 bands out there. This is $130 for a couple days of GA. So that’s one of the ways to keep those costs down."

Listening to the fans

Of course, there's also demand for a higher-end ticket with perks.This year, the most expensive tickets sold out first.

"The platinum ticket sold out first and then the VIP," Sweetwood says. "So we have found that that baseball crowd and the crowd that’s into this, a little bit of an older demographic as relates to other festivals, is definitely into the higher-end ticket. If people are going to be there, there’s a percentage that definitely wants to pay for the higher-end ticket and get the all-in experience."

This year's festival moved the VIP and platinum experience to the opposite side of the stage, allowing those fans with the higher-end tickets to experience an Arizona sunrise and enjoy the music at the same.

It's too early to talk lineup but the fans will have a say.

"We do a survey," Sweetwood says, "and take into account who they would like to see. We definitely like the programming that’s come along. I’m into anything, but we like rock and roll as it relates to this crowd. So I think we’ll keep that genre. We’re not gonna switch to electronic music or hip-hop, things like that. I’m not against those genres at all. We do festivals of those. We just really like where this has ended up from a programming standpoint."

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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