Originally Posted by
TheBang
The festival shows subsidize the massive costs for traveling over there, and allow them to do the headlining shows in-between.
Festivals want to announce their lineups in a controlled manner on their timeline. If NIN publishes their whole schedule of headlining shows, people might be able to fill in the blanks in the schedule to determine what festivals NIN will be attending, before those festivals are able to make their announcement. Once more of the festival dates start to fill in, we should see the headlining shows start to be announced, once their announcements would give less away about potential festival appearances that aren't yet announced.