![]() "It's expensive and the long flight is a big turn off which means sometimes you're trying to secure a headliner right before you're announcing your line-up."īut even with the challenges, Greco says: "A lot of the time you end up having to make a decision on who to go for based on your gut instinct.” The end of the mega-festival?ĭucrou says large multi-day festivals like Splendour still have a place - reiterating low sales are reflective of the state of the economy. "However, it's not easy in this climate to convince international artists to come to Australia. "It's a long process of information gathering. We survey the previous year's event attendees and find out who they want to see at the following year's event, we chat with booking agents globally to find out who's on cycle, we go to shows and analyse as much data as possible,” he says. Greco says they lock in headliners for events nine to 12 months before the event with line-ups announced about four months prior to the festival. Rara Brearley says she is now more picky with which festivals she attends. ![]() "It's not just purchasing the tickets: you have to buy the tickets, get transport there, organise accommodation – there's a whole lot of outside costs other than just the tickets that some people tend to forget about," Ms Heyward says.Īustralia's music festival scene has suffered at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather events. ![]() The 19-year-old is an avid music festival fan and wasn't deterred by last year's Splendour wash-out, but this year she can't afford it. 'Perfect storm': Festivals post-pandemicĪshlin Heyward thought she'd be packing her bags to attend Splendour on Friday. ![]() Financial mismanagement was also the death knell for Big Day Out in 2014 and Soundwave in 2016. Organisers said the deaths and low ticket sales were not to blame for its cancellation, rather financial problems from its parent company SFX (now LiveStyle).įuture Music Festival ended in 2015, a year after Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group bought a stake in the festival, after finding its parent company had been in financial strife for years. The company behind the Lunar Electric festival, Intensive Events, was wound up by liquidators on the order of the Supreme Court of Queensland earlier this month.įinancial issues have been the death of a number of Australia's largest music festivals in the past.Įlectronic dance music (EDM) festival Stereosonic did not return in 2016 after two attendees died from drug overdoses. ( Facebook: The Grass Is Greener)Īn administrators' report filed to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) revealed the company behind The Grass Is Greener, Hand Picked Events and Marketing, incurred a $2 million debt due to high costs and "significantly lower" ticket sales. The company behind the Grass Is Greener festival went into administration in 2022. The experience left revellers with mixed responses, reconciled by full and partial refunds for the day-one cancellation. The parent company, Secret Sounds, was forced to pay $100,000 for failing to comply with its traffic management plan at the 2022 event. The increased patronage of 50,000 meant some people were waiting upward of 12 hours for busses.Īfter the event, a man who attended the festival died from meningococcal. The first day, featuring headliners Gorillaz, was cancelled because of poor weather. Splendour is going into this year's festival seeking to rehabilitate from last year's troubles following two years of cancellations due to COVID.ĭays before the event was about to start, new laws were put into play meaning under-18 attendees were required to be accompanied by an adult at all times, with police promising to enforce the new rule. They're not the only organisers feeling the pinch, with several events pulling the pin this year - and it paints a dire picture of the future of music festivals in Australia. It was also the first time festival organisers had to contend with ticket scalping.īut on the eve of the festival's 2023 iteration, the Byron Bay event hasn't captured the attention of punters, and has failed to sell out for the first time since 2011. Ten years ago, demand for Splendour in the Grass tickets was so high, the three-day festival sold out within an hour of going on sale.
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