The thing with NIN's music is it's very diverse. It only takes a non fan to come over and listen for 2 minutes to decide if it's something worth staying for. People at this festival were going INSANE for stuff like Baauer, RL Grime, Girl Talk, Flying Lotus. Like dancy, bassy, dubstep stuff.
NIN's music isn't all electronic based. If I were unfamiliar with the band and came over during something like Piggy or Hurt, I wouldn't even give the band a second chance. And that was exactly me for some of the dance music I listed above... I went to check it out, saw a song or 2 and decided it wasn't my thing and left. If it wasn't the EDM stuff drawing the crowds, it was the hip-hop. Kendrick Lamar literally ended his set on the adjacent stage seconds before NIN hit the stage. Kendrick drew at least 10,000 strong. And most of those people did NOT come over to NIN after. Maybe a few of them did, but from what I heard, not for longer than 5 minutes. I know this because one of the guys camping with us was at Kendrick, knows nothing about NIN, so I thought it would be cool that since him and I have such different musical tastes, he could experience NIN for the first time live and see what all his other friends keep making a big deal of. Needless to say, he didn't like it... he said he came by looking for us and after a few mins of not being able to find it us, he just went back to the campsite to sit there by himself.
Here I thought this friend of ours who has never been exposed to NIN before is gonna get to see NIN for the first time live, what a treat that will be. Turns out I was wrong as he didn't care to even give it a chance. I'm willing to bet that is what the majority of this festival's crowd was thinking as well.
With NIN, you either love them or you don't. When the festival originally announced NIN was getting a 2.5 hr block some people on facebook started bitching that "nobody wants to hear 2.5 hrs of the Nine Inch Nails" (yes, they wrote "the" nine inch nails, not joking).
I also read some review that they basically did compare NIN to rock dinosaurs of today. It's sad to think that, but it's true. Music has changed in the last 10 years drastically.
Speaking of Dinosaurs... Dinosaur Jr was there as well, lol... not sure how many people that crowd drew as it was 1:30 in the afternoon when they went on and we were still chilling at the campsite getting ready for the day so we missed them.