Driving home from work yesterday I was dumbfounded by the news that Soundwave Festival had been cancelled due to low ticket sales. Then all of a sudden I felt a little déjà vu as I thought back to how many music festivals had been cancelled this year.
In recent years we have seen a rise in the number of boutique festivals offering more than just the experience of music and live performers; the modern festival is now an experience of escape from the hustle and bustle of city life offering a place to kick back and relax with friends in a secluded location.
However, as festival numbers dwindle one can only expect that the humble music festival may have lost its mojo.
Are Australian’s now looking toward the boutique festival experience rather than a large festival rock out?
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Soundwave
One of Australia’s most beloved music festivals officially announced yesterday afternoon that the 2016 leg of the event is cancelled due to poor ticket sales. The organiser of Soundwave AJ Maddah was incredibly disappointed that the event had to be cancelled tweeting “I am flat broke and physically and spiritually crushed.” Young Australians who forked out the $170 for a ticket to annual event are now stressed as ticket refunds are up in the air.
One of Australia’s largest alternative rock festival, Big Day Out, announced earlier this year that the festival will not go ahead in 2016. The festival had lost its vigour over its 22 year running and began to dwindle in numbers, popularity and young attendees. The festival has been classed as an ageing middle aged rocker, that is out of fashion and has lost its identity.
In April this year the organisers of the Future Music Festival announced that the event will be cancelled for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the festival just did not make financial sense anymore to its organisers. Due to dwindling numbers, drug arrests and mountains of debt the festival had to be put to bed.
Australia’s favourite R&B festival was cancelled only a few days out from it’s Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland shows. The festival was set to kick off with American R&B and soul icons Mary J Blige and Ms Lauryn Hill as headliners, but unfortunately due to low ticket sales the event could not go ahead.
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Whether it’s a social shift in the festival going experience, the new found love of the boutique festival going experience, the multiple drug offences and tragedy’s or that everyone is just too busy to attend, Australia’s large festival’s are suffering.
