In 2009, my former band—whom you’ve assuredly never heard of—played the Voodoo Music Experience. I had a chance encounter with the talent buyer for the kids’ stage, which was desperately looking for acts. My band, while very good in my biased opinion, was by no means setting the world on fire. Yet we found a way to play Voodoo.

We had this chance because of Voodoo’s layout at the time. Under founding production company Rehage Entertainment, Voodoo featured two main stages with a phalanx of...