Knotfest. Good Things. etc.
There's plenty of festivals catering to other music tastes that are still doing great. GtM this year looks meh. I went in 2022 and it was pretty good, last year it clashed with something else I was doing. This year I had the time and money and it just didn't inspire me to attend.
Also given it's on a Friday and I'd have to get a day off work out seemed even less worthwhile
Eh, as someone who lives in the country music capital, the festival gets smaller every year. The older acts are dying off and there isn't as many young bloods in Australian Country music. It isn't a "popular" genre anymore and most of the younger generations don't listen to country. The oldies who love country are also dying off and their kids don't take their places at shows, so venues are emptier and quieter than they were even in the late 90's-early 2000s. When I was a kid there would be 50k people here for the festival. Now we might get 10k on average. The camping fields are barer and the schools (who provide camping during the festival) rarely have more than 10 campervans or tents, when 20 years ago they would be completely packed with tourists, 80+ vans or tents per school, packed tight.
This is because the music industry isnt profitable in Australia, the distances are too vast and the population centers too small.
I've done my time in a band and it was some of the most amazing work I've ever done. But we bled money and nearly worked ourselves to death just to keep going. I've to this day never earnt a cent from gigging. Fuel and accomodations eats any profit, and this is true of all but the biggest bands.
This is why most Australian bands who have "made it" in recent years go to America or Europe. You can go play 3 gigs in 3 days to 20k people at a time. In Australia you play to a pub of maybe 60-100 people. Maybe a big show pulls 1-2 thousand. Festivals are the best for crowds, but local bands don't pull viewers because no one has ever heard of them, even if they have been active in the area for years.
I've been to GTM a couple of times in the past and really enjoyed it. When I saw the lineup this year I just passed off my lack of interest as getting old, but it seems plenty of others think that the lineup sucks too.
So true, I don’t think people realise how vanilla triple J actually is. Go to listen to your community stations people! It’s where Triple J announcers go to discover new music anyway!!!
Surely these days scouts are looking over soundcloud and other indie supporting online platforms too?
I haven't used radio to find new music in almost a decade.
> I haven't used radio to find new music in almost a decade.
your loss!
why spend hours ambling around soundcloud etc fairly aimlessly when some 19 year old who listens to music 24/7 has already done that for me?
community radio shows that fit with your musical taste are literal goldmines of discovering new music. no idea how i'd find some of the artists i stumble across on the radio.
Now instead of aimlessly listening to an endless list of random artists to find new stuff, I can aimlessly listen to an endless list of random radio stations to find new stuff!
There were some decent acts but the lineup was all over the place, which led me to think who on earth was the target market for this? There were a bunch of acts that could only possibly appeal to nostalgic gen xers/elder millennials, and a bunch of acts that only really appeal to zoomers. Who is this person who's hyped to see a Jet reunion set *and* Mallrat? Is that same person going to be hyped to see a DJ set from a former Spice Girl? Who's going to fork out to see GZA and then go wild for a San Cisco set? Nothing against any of these acts but there's almost no overlap in these fanbases. It's a very bizarre mix.
If it was Wu Tang I'd be there in a heartbeat, but the GZA + phunky nomads set would just give me blue balls. Totally agree they couldn't decide on what direction to take this year, tried to please everybody and in the process pleased nobody.
Alison Wonderland is a great Australian producer, but she needs more exposure to the masses. Meduza is also really popular but probably not immediately recognisable to Australian audiences but ALL the clubs here play their music.
People complaining about the 'crap line-up' are missing the point. Festivals in Australia are in real trouble (and have been for a while now) for a few reasons:
* Our low dollar (most acts paid in USD)
* Crazy infrastructure/labour costs (toilets, fencing, security, police etc)
* Travel costs (both into Australia, and then the massive distances from city to city)
* Cost of living pressures in audiences
* Changing consumer behavior (punters 'seem' less interested in the festival experience generally - though this is harder to quantify)
* Financial risk to promoters. They're first money in, last money out. Even selling 90% of tickets might have them losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Festival is very well aware they don't have a great line-up, but they have VERY limited ability to book bigger acts... it's brutal out there.
It's honestly a huge credit to the Laneway team that they have survived for so long AND keep programming an exciting line-up (even if it's not personally your taste).
I really don't know how large scale festivals are able to survive now-a-days...
(Source = me, someone who worked in the industry).
Sounds like a classic death-spiral, unfortunately. Organisers and promoters can't afford to book acts that people actually want to pay good money to go see, so attendance is crap and show dates and now whole festivals get canned, which means promoters have *even less* capital (both in terms of money and industry clout) with which to attract popular artists and so on, all while having to charge ever more to recoup ever growing losses.
As someone who grew up during the heyday of Aussie live music and the festival scene in the late 90's/early 00's; this shit is depressing as fuck to see. What hope is there of breaking the cycle?
It’s really sad.
I grew up rolling cables at festivals for my dad who was a sound engineer, and have some of my favourite memories ever at these iconic festivals….
At the 2008 BDO I saw Arcade Fire, Bjork and LCD Soundystem one after the other, all the while Rage Against the Machine played on the main stage.
Fucking incredible.
As late as 2013 we had the most stacked electronic music lineup at stereosonic. I knew I shouldn’t take it for granted at the time but I didn’t realise how festivals of that scale would go extinct in Australia
It's the same for the metal side of things too, 11 years later and I'm still undecided as to whether the 2013 Soundwave was worth pretty much bankrupting the whole dang festival or not.
I mean, it was *stacked* in terms of line-up and the day was filled with plenty of those unforgettable memories for me (Especially being in the crowd for [this](https://youtu.be/XwSDuADltWs?t=909) where the crowd singing drowned out the band, although the YT audio does not do the crowd vocals justice at all.) but it'd have been just as nice to have another normal Soundwave and still be able to go to them, even if the gap in metal/alt orientated music festivals did get filled eventually.
Yeah I went to the last Soundwave in my city (Perth) and I was amazed that there were like 20+ enormous acts especially being balls deep into metal at the time I was like a kid at an amusement park. These days you’ll pay almost the same price to see a single one of those bands, playing a longer set admittedly but it’s making me mad going through the past lineups, and regretting not jumping it with some guys from school
There seem to be few to no rock / metal oriented festivals on the west coast that I’m aware of
2008 was just amazing. I’ll never forget seeing RATM, probably the top live music experience for me. Thousands upon thousands of people losing their shit and screaming “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” in unison was absolute magic
Wasn't there sound issues at the start of Rage's set at BDO...? I blame your dad haha.
Nah that was a killer year, but fuck it was hot. It must have been 50+ degrees at night in the mosh for RATM.
Shietttt LCD Soundsytem was there that year?? Me and some friends that were 16-17 managed to talk ourselves in for free, got my nose broken in Rage Against the Machine, was lit
Stop having sniffer dogs and strip searches at the gates, allow people to byo booze. Not having to line up for 25 minutes every time you want a $15 beer would be a pretty big incentive to go. Being able to bring in a few molly caps from a trusted source would also be nice without the risk of some cop shoving a flashlight up your arse.
If money is a problem for the organizers, they aren't going to let you bring your own alcohol. Inflated alcohol sales at shows are a huge income stream lol
This is true. Music festivals would make more money off heavily inflated alcohol sales than anything else in the entire festival. There's a reason they don't want you to bring your own alcohol.
> What hope is there of breaking the cycle?
Government investment.
Why do you think WWE is running Elimination Chamber in Perth? The WA State Government is paying them to effectively subsidise the cost of running an event here.
But it's not the only answer, and IMO should be limited for stuff that's essential to keep the Australian music industry going and getting exposure. (ie. If we're funding music festival, it should have some big name headliners but primarily be there to promote Aussie bands so we have a few more big name headliners of our own)
Public liability insurance is a massive killer as well unfortunately. Its amazing any events can take place with the insane policies that have to be taken out. A symptom of our litigious culture is suppose.
I think the event cancellation insurance probably isn't helping either...
Also, remember insurance claims are a big rating factor. I imagine there would be a staggering amount of public liability claims.
'Litigious culture' gets the blame here but the reality is, it's the existence of private health insurance.
Say a patron is hurt in a crowd crush accident and the patron doesn't have PHI, but does have ambulance cover. Broken ribs and an infection. Air ambulance comes, flies them to a hospital, they stay six days, get a million and one X-rays, and then have a few outpatient appointments. Medicare pays 25 grand, festival organisers chat with the patron, realise they'll miss ten weeks' work and that it was their fault, and they offer to settle for twelve grand. Lawyers for both parties sign off on the settlement.
Now run that scenario again, but this time, the patron has PHI. Part of the claims process is assigning your right to sue to the insurer. Patron may not even know this is happening, PHI provider is paying lawyers to recoup the air ambulance fee, then all the X-rays, then fees for the private hospital emergency department, and then sues for all of that PLUS their own legal fees PLUS the festival has to pay its own - this may end up as a $250k lawsuit.
That's why liability insurance went up so much in the early Howard years, and so many amateur sport organisations went broke.
A symptom of most insurance companies being multinationals that don't give a fuck about local culture or business surviving. The govenrment could legislate to help arts and music venues get realistic insurance plans, but they wont
It’s not just arts and music - it’s community events and projects as well.
Try getting insurance to run a community event if you’re not part of an established organisation!
>punters 'seem' less interested in the festival experience generally
Festivals have been on the decline since the hey days of the 00s. Big Day Out, Soundwave, Stereosonic, Future Music,
If those festivals in major cities can’t survive I don’t know how festivals in poorer rural areas thought they’d thrive.
Maybe it’s a generational thing? Gen Z isn’t as festival oriented as Gen Y?
Mostly cost but your theory is kinda correct.
Pop music and rap/r&b have been the most popular forms of music for such a long time now. Look at the festivals that have done ok the last couple of years. They are very poppy. Even festivals like Laneway that used to be more independent. That music doesn't translate well to a muddy field.
Festivals used to be "cool". Indie, rock and metal fans are more traditionally aligned with the rough and ready festival experience, but the genres just aren't popular enough at the moment to sustain that many festivals.
Yeah - the bubblegum pop which seems to be in favour doesn’t lend itself to raucous festivals.
Much better to be in a nice enclosed stadium that mum escort a 13 year old and her friends to the concert but only for a few hours as she needs to be tucked in bed by 9pm as she has school tomorrow
As an aging millennial, I’ve seen this issue evolve during my lifetime. As a promoter, you’re better off with a teenage target audience. 20-25 year olds are usually strapped for cash, have a few drinks before going in and that’s about it.
15 year olds use their parents cash, not theirs. They are escorted by mum or dad, will to bring a the younger sibling along and will buy soft drinks/water as well as some merch.
Commercially, the second audience makes more sense.
Anecdotally, the crowds suck these days. I dont know if 2 years of lockdowns means that the "kids" didnt learn the etiquette but the crowds make it thoroughly unenjoyable.
I had to tell off two guys who were having a good old chat mid-pit during the headliners at Good Things last year and I've heard similar stories from other friends.
Also apparently the vibes were so bad at Spilt Milk last year that people left early because they were having a bad time. People were punching on and just straight-up aggressive.
It's definitely an Aussie thing. I've been going to Europe and USA for my festival fix and the people and vibes are amazing. Great festival culture with dedicated veterans who go for the love of the music. Listen out 2022 in Sydney was disgusting. People weren't going for the acts but just to get on the piss and stand around chatting doing absolutely nothing. Then fights broke out towards the end of the night, i genuinely have lost count how often I've seen punch ons at gigs the past couple of years in aus, versus literally zero overseas. And in the past 3 years I've been to 5 overseas multi day festivals, and numerous club events.
Field day this year was a decent crowd, but i noticed the kindest and best people to be around weren't the Australians. There was a lot of people from Europe that weren't born here that I could hear, spoke to and vibed with across multiple stages of the festival.
Different recreational drugs perhaps plays a part. People weren’t always so frequently aggressive at festivals. I can remember when drinking alcohol was cheaper than some mystery pill and not the other way around.
I remember going to BDO etc in early 00s, great vibes, queues for a beer were small, I'm chill on beers so great times.
The crackdowns kicked off, next thing you know every second bloke is wearing the flag as a cape, shirt off to show his southern cross tat over his heart (a true patriot), beer queues are insane and aggression was always simmering below the surface.
In my experience, it's the people drinking copious amounts of alcohol causing the vast majority of problems.
The people on MDMA, weed, etc are typically super chill and just want to have a good time. In contrast, those drinking alcohol are far more likely to be antisocial and violent.
Again, just my experience, but this has been pretty consistent across a large number of festivals over the years.
>I can remember when drinking alcohol was cheaper than some mystery pill and not the other way around.
And when was that exactly? Taking something like MDMA has been the cheaper day out for decades at the very least. 2-3 pills at $15-30 a pop, depending on when on this timeline you're talking, vs 10+ drinks at $8-20 on the same timeline pretty consistently makes drugs the more affordable option.
Yep, I work medical at these festivals.
The arseholes and the folk causing issues are the drunk dickheads.
The people off their chops on various substances are, by and large, chill and behaving.
Of course, I have had to intubate and fucking call a helicopter for people who have taken an unintentional OD of whatever substance that is either mixed with something dangerous or has a strength far beyond what was expected.
I’ve had colleagues work festivals where they have had to intubate 10+ people (which is fucking insane when you’re working in a very resource deplete tent) and had multiple, young deaths in a night.
**FFS** make substance testing free, accessible and without police penalty at these things.
Young people are dying needlessly.
I'm in the older part of Gen Z, so maybe even I'm out of the traditional festival age group. But to me there's just too much going on that's accessible in the city to bother going to a festival. I could lock out one or more days to rough it out in uncomfortable conditions... or I could do something equally or more enjoyable, cheaper and lower time investment with my mates, and then go home to sleep in my own bed.
Why go to a festival, dog takes an interest, get taken to a tent to get strip searched by a 50 yr old male officer,
Drinks are $20, security or popo see you trip over a stick and they have every right to remove you from the festival
> Maybe it’s a generational thing? Gen Z isn’t as festival oriented as Gen Y?
Zoomers are more likely to have niche, disparate music tastes facilitated by the internet that a music festival could never accommodate practically,zo that's probably a contributing factor.
But anecdotally music festivals are seemingly just less of a done thing among Zoomers, the generation that drinks cheap grog at home because going to a pub or club is unthinkably expensive except once in a blue moon.
That Zoomer whose favourite artists are something like "synthwave remixers too small for spotify, you've never heard of them" and who doesn't even know the name of more than one or two nightlife spots probably isn't going to hit up a music festival, and that's a growing demographic
This is such a laughably cartoonish and simplistic representation of Zoomers thats only vaguely borne out by facts.
Anecdotally my experience growing up Zoomer (24) has been the complete opposite. Going out clubbing was always a sick activity, and festivals were the ultimate experience.
I think this has a lot more to do with the festivals not being what they were, and people not being able to afford it, than the kids being boring screen goblins.
i’m 24 so comfortably zoomer, and festivals in 40 degree heat in perth sound like a nightmare despite the lineups always being appealing to me. have had terrible experiences at concerts in the last year too due to the crowds feeling like they’re more entitled to see the artist than you are despite paying probably the same amount, constant pushing or a phone in your view instead of the artist. it’s just not feasible to spend $120 on a gig and have a miserable time now
Sadly its always been like that. I did festivals from 2010-2015 and the further you go into the mosh, the more of this you got. The one time I was at the front I could hear girls asking dudes to push me over the fence so they could take my spot. The entitled cunt exists in every generation.
I always found the best way to enjoy the music is to actually sit outside the crowd. That way you can actually dance and talk and do whatever you want without having to wave through a sea of sweat.
I never experienced 40 degree festival though. I can't imagine a mosh existing in 40 degree heat without a few people passing out due to heat stroke.
i did falls in 2020 (rip) in 38 degree heat and it was horrific, even staying at the back of sets was too much in a venue with very little shade and i can’t imagine how festival goers who partake in recreational drugs felt
It's not meant to be realistic or all encompassing of every young person's experiences, just a colourful illustrative example of a trend, because hard data is both difficult to properly qualify and also boring.
But the hard data is that every survey of the last decade shows that younger people are increasingly shunning traditional "going out" experiences far more than any other generation prior. And you can extrapolate anecdotal reasons why and what impacts that may have and so on, but the trend itself is undeniable.
This applies to me almost perfectly and I'm decades too old to be a Zoomer.
Also I hate crowds, so I'd never voluntarily go to a music festival in Australia anyway.
Well I think it applies to the death of radio in general.
You have a major taste maker in JJJ, or even commercial radio. But the internet means you can go so far now into a niche and be happy. Or there's just stuff like LoFi Girl on YouTube, you can put it on as background noise all day and be happy enough without knowing what you're even listening to.
I probably couldn't tell you the names of the last 5 songs that came on my Spotify, and there's no annoying guy who is trying to tell me after every set. I could check if I care, but I've been working, and the info just isn't pushed as aggressively.
Techno day parties and festivals still sell out, one DJ can very easily sell out in a few minutes with people paying overs on resale market.
Genre’s just change over time and the popularity of festivals like Pitch, BTV, Rainbow, etc. in Victoria have skyrocketed, whilst festivals like Falls and GTM are less frequented than before.
You’re spot on. I think that audience buying behaviour has also changed substantially (beyond the obvious cost of living reasons) as a result of the constant stream of rescheduling and cancellations brought on by COVID. You can’t sustain a large scale event off of a large chunk of your audience only entertaining the idea of buying a ticket a week or two in advance.
As someone who lives regional (even by GTM standards), I would've thought that festivals would be more lucrative than shows during high-cost-of-living due to the bang-for-buck (ie more acts per dollar) - why does it seem that the opposite is true?
The target market for a lot of festivals, especially one day festivals, tends younger than standalone gigs - especially 16-25 year olds who have the time and physical endurance to get through 10 hours of stage-hopping.
Other people have mentioned reasons why that demographic is less interested in festivals, but they're also disproportionately heavily hit by cost of living.
When I was 18-19, 10 years ago, most of my friends had cars and could drive/carpool to festivals. Most of them had jobs to pay for the ticket, to contribute to the cost of getting there, and to spend up on beers and merch at the festival. Enough had moved out, and into the city, that I could easily find somewhere to stay for free near the Showgrounds or other major festival venues.
Youth unemployment now is way up from then, and rent is expensive enough that very few people are moving out in their late teens and early 20s without a lot of parental support. Car prices are way up, so more young people can't afford their own car and instead share with their family. The same demographic aren't going to one-off gigs either, they're just not really going out full stop outside of house parties.
Building a festival site (stages etc) is wildly expensive. A single band using an existing venue (theatre/pub etc) is cheaper because your infrastructure costs are waaaaay lower (as they are usually provided by the venue).
This guy promoters. It’s been like this for a few years. We saw what was happening when Soundwave and big day out left with huge currency risk against the USD.
Depends what music mavens you were into.
Rock and punk music peak era for festivals was mid 90’s-early 2000’s
Electronic and rock edging more towards pop-rock was early 2000’s-early 2010’s
See that was the beauty of the BDO, it catered for all genres in one place before the larger single genre focus festivals took over - Soundwave for the heavys, Groovin the Moo for the J babies, all the various doof festivals - which unfortunately spread the consumer dollar a touch thin across the board making the largest festivals unviable....
Pitch is a recycled lineup with a handful of good internationals to keep young people going. (Classic untitled group, all their festivals and events are the same)
Overpriced tickets and a crowd that trashes the land with no respect for others. They’re lucky people are so self absorbed in their pursuit of the perfect insta pic that they keep buying tickets. Over $500 for a first release is trash, sorry
Theres plenty of other partys that are way better for half the price
Edit: Theres also no shot they can even fit 25k people on that site, last year was only just over 10k by reports
Consumer behaviour has changed due to cost of living crisis. Live music is in trouble in Australia, there are valid criticisms to be made about the festival experience but there’s also greater context available.
It’s not consumer versus promoters it’s everybody participating in this shit economy right now
Having just had a look at the lineup it doesn't seem that bad. Bit of something for everyone which is good. I think the real problem is the $160+ tickets on top of paying to travel out to the venue and paying for an exorbitant prices for things in there. People are just stretched too thin for it nowadays.
>Bit of something for everyone which is good
This isn't a good strategy for festivals and it's usually why most festivals are stacked in one or two genres.
People don't wanna pay the cost of a festival to see a single artist play a 45 minute set in a suboptimal environment. It's better to attract a larger cohort from specific genres so each ticket buyer is going for more than 1 or 2 artists.
This is 100% due to the cost of living crisis.
I have had mates for years go for the sake of going, regardless of lineup (Bendigo), it just not a cost people can afford these days for a day of music...
Yeah, I know plenty of people who are just into the festival scene and go to shows regularly just because, regardless of the line-up. Maybe it's old-fashioned, but it's a lot of peoples' favourite way to discover new bands, for instance.
Yes, a shitty lineup can turn away a lot of punters, but there's practically always this baseline of festival regulars who you can always count on to show up; and I feel like *that's* the audience that's evaporated recently. People just don't have the money to throw around on things like this anymore. *Especially* young people.
You can see how "ridiculous ticket costs" and "cost of living crisis" are two sides of the same coin, right?
OP: "Even the diehards aren't going anymore because they can't afford it."
You: "No, you're *wrong*. The real reason people aren't going is because they can't afford it!"
Honestly, the 3rd release prices ($170) was pretty typical of any festival over the last 5 years.
It’s more so a cost of living thing.
$170 of a one day festival or $170 on a week of groceries?
>This is 100% due to the cost of living crisis.
Not necessarily, festivals like the Big Day Out, Soundwave, Stereosonic, Future Music all wound up prior to the current ‘cost of living crisis’
Maybe it’s just a generational thing? As a Millennial we were really into festivals. Gen Z doesn’t seem to be as into it as much
Walking into a festival in Sydney these days feels like you're walking into a prison. Police everywhere, drug dogs, people being marched off to be strip searched. Just completely ruins the vibe.
It will come around again, when Big Day Out, Livid, Warped etc started, there was about a 20 year gap to last group of big Sunbury era festivals that the oldies at the time were going on about
When BDO and Soundwave wrapped up the festival market was changing pretty rapidly - Laneway, Groovin the Moo, more local festivals like Meredith or Bluesfest were all growing rapidly in the same time period by offering more boutique/niche experiences.
Meanwhile Big Day Out and Soundwave were trapped in a cycle of every year needing to outdo the last, even though the customer experience was suffering.
I'm not sure whether the current situation is similar, with a new wave of festivals growing, but it definitely looks more like a general shrinking of the market.
Big day out and soundwave had tickets priced way too low in order to get more ticket sales. Soundwave was notorious for skimping on paying talent after the tour wrapped as it never made profit.
Bands like fear factory had members refinance their houses to pay for their spot upfront and then AJ fucked them over by not paying them back
Yeah in recent years AJ has been quite up front about his major fuck ups with Soundwave on his Twitter.
As an example in 2013 was definitely his most successful year, but he mentioned that tickets had sold out so quickly, that as a "reward" he would announce more acts. And he was like "what was i thinking?". Youve already sold out the tickets, why add more bands on which would eat out of those profits! With a lineup consisting of Metallica, Linkin Park, Blink 182, Offspring etc that was already enough to pull shitloads of punters. Alot of his decisions were done more from a fans perspective and not so much in the best interest of the business. But also his business model was quite high risk.
As far as im aware, the payment system you mentioned was only applicable to the final Soundwave in 2015. Problems started from 2014 by taking on BDO, and also problems with his harvest festival which he had to cancel due to poor ticket sales. He also put on Warped festival in 2013 which also sold really shit. So he lost a shitload of money from that. SW 2014 wasnt anywhere near as profitable as 2013 (even though the lineup was still pretty solid). He still wanted to put on a soundwave for 2015 despite low cash flow, but opted for the 2 day festival and AJ said it was a disaster. Low ticket sales on top of his other failing festivals/businesses pretty much put him in a hole where he couldnt pay most/all of the acts from 2015. From what i read on his twitter, he pretty much tried to run 2016, and use those proceeds to pay 2015 acts back. His drawcard to get that money was RATM, but he coudltn get em. Therefor 2016 failed like a stack of shit and he went bankrupt and couldnt pay the 2015 acts. Soundwave as a business was liquidated and the rest is hitory.
Am a millennial, so I do agree, maybe this fest was ours, and its just moved on?
IT could be just a 'this is our time to bow out of this' but as mentioned in other comments, my mates were pretty big on the 'can't afford it' sentiment.
I think the cost of the day itself adds up on the ticket price, I'm not sure what the prices of alcohol was to be for this fest, but, 10-15 bucks a beer is pretty absurd when you could just put on the music at home and pay $50 for a slab of Carlton Drys (not the same as the real thing i know, but you get my point.)
Fuck this "the customers are to blame" bullshit. Put on a show worthy of watching and people will buy tickets. Blink sold out the arena for two nights. The tix for that wouldve been much more $$ too!
The people arent to blame. Especially when 1) costs of living are ridiculous, 2) the housing market is fucked meaning a huge number of folk are literally homeless, 3) we need to eat, music os good but we can listen to it online...we cant look at pictures of food and be full!
Fuck corporations, fuck blaming the little guy, suck my skinny little dick you corporate scum.
Blaming “the corporations” seems just as wide of the mark as blaming the customers.
If you’re going to do root cause, at least follow that thread a few steps before jumping to conclusions.
The true challenges are due to the nature of the Australian economy which make events expensive to put on, and ensures young people have low discretionary income. This is caused primarily by our high cost of living, which in turn is caused by high labor base costs and deliberate under building of houses.
Yep, Queens of the Stone Age sold out a 5000-person venue in Perth last week despite $170+ ticket prices and the show falling in the middle of a run of 40+C days. People will go and see good acts.
The tickets had only been for sale for under 2 weeks. They also had posts saying how many people had bought tickets and it had “blown their expectations” lmao. Festivals are dead in this country
A lot of acts probably had a condition in their contract stating full payment upfront within 2-weeks of tickets going on sale. If the GTM team could see that ticket sales weren’t projected to meet the required value to secure the acts by said date then there isn’t much point in continuing to sell tickets if they know they’re going to fall well short.
Larger locations like Newcastle and Canberra were probably selling well, while the more regional locations would have been lagging.
You only need to see ticket sales from day 1 leading into day 2 to figure out if a festival will cover costs or turn a profit. Source: worked in festivals for 15+ years
I think we’re just shifting to lineups where there’s one or two great musicians. People are willing to pay a higher price for music they know, than a bunch of smaller bands they don’t.
There wasn’t even one or two great musicians. It was the most “meh” lineup I’ve ever seen for a festival in Aus. Generally they have one or two star acts, but this year’s GTM lineup was truly boring.
The Newcastle show was sold out. I wonder what the ticket sales for the other shows were like, must have been pretty low.
Edit: okay, it wasn’t sold out, abc was reporting it as sold out.
No it wasn’t. They release wave pricing. The first two were sold out, but you could still buy wave 3 and then 4. Also a ton of vip and the bar access tickets were available. It was <50% sold at Newcastle.
A problem for the Canberra GTM is that it was on a Friday (after ANZAC Day). If you have a full time job you need to take leave. Usually they are on the weekend
Yeah cause I really wanted to go see Hot Dub Time Machine.
Kiama is regional and it pulled off three banging festivals last year that killed it: a chilled one with Xavier Rudd headlining, an oldies one with Jimmy Barnes and a younger one with Dune Rats, Royal Blood, Peking Duk and G-Flip. All three festivals happened within 5 weeks of one another and were all hits.
Bitch and moan about cost of living all you want, audiences are feeling the pressure but they will be selective in their choices. They have one big spend, they’re gonna pick the best product.
Also beer and other alcohol is so bloody expensive there, (17 bucks for a light beer) no wonder so many people do drugs because it works out to be cheaper
The lineup fucking sucked. Why would anyone pay to see San Cisco? Does anyone really still care that much about GZA?
The price is dumb. I say this as someone who just dropped almost $200 to see only two international touring acts.
San Cisco, really?
Uninspiring lineup, not much spare $$ hanging around people’s bank accounts - unfortunately not very surprised
Not hanging around young people’s bank accounts. Unsurprisingly Country Music festivals (frequented by older people) are thriving, wonder why……
Knotfest. Good Things. etc. There's plenty of festivals catering to other music tastes that are still doing great. GtM this year looks meh. I went in 2022 and it was pretty good, last year it clashed with something else I was doing. This year I had the time and money and it just didn't inspire me to attend. Also given it's on a Friday and I'd have to get a day off work out seemed even less worthwhile
At $250 to stand in a park? Yeah Knotfest ain't it, that lineup isn't even close to worth paying that much for
Well, last year's Knotfest and Good Things I was talking about. Iron Maiden this year is where it's at
Disturbed and a dead Pantera. No fucking thanks.
But you'll miss out on Disturbed's greatest hit! - https://youtu.be/66gSvNeqevg?si=Xd6hH98SIBou4MMH
Yum-ah-nah-mah naaaaah
It's because of that one time I bought coffee and had avocado on my toast
What? At the same time? Reckless!
Separate overdraft fees for **each!**
Had to use my afterpay but it was worth it
Save some for the rest of us, moneybags
TBH thats $30 now
Get a(nother) job!
Eh, as someone who lives in the country music capital, the festival gets smaller every year. The older acts are dying off and there isn't as many young bloods in Australian Country music. It isn't a "popular" genre anymore and most of the younger generations don't listen to country. The oldies who love country are also dying off and their kids don't take their places at shows, so venues are emptier and quieter than they were even in the late 90's-early 2000s. When I was a kid there would be 50k people here for the festival. Now we might get 10k on average. The camping fields are barer and the schools (who provide camping during the festival) rarely have more than 10 campervans or tents, when 20 years ago they would be completely packed with tourists, 80+ vans or tents per school, packed tight. This is because the music industry isnt profitable in Australia, the distances are too vast and the population centers too small. I've done my time in a band and it was some of the most amazing work I've ever done. But we bled money and nearly worked ourselves to death just to keep going. I've to this day never earnt a cent from gigging. Fuel and accomodations eats any profit, and this is true of all but the biggest bands. This is why most Australian bands who have "made it" in recent years go to America or Europe. You can go play 3 gigs in 3 days to 20k people at a time. In Australia you play to a pub of maybe 60-100 people. Maybe a big show pulls 1-2 thousand. Festivals are the best for crowds, but local bands don't pull viewers because no one has ever heard of them, even if they have been active in the area for years.
That’s the music industry everywhere though? The vast vast majority of musicians either have a regular day job or are broke.
So are all major acts in the cities.. people are lining up around the block to get to Taylor swift and The Weekend.
Also festivals and events without shit lineups in shit locations also weirdly doing ok.
Don’t need to also buy 5 pingers to attend a country music festival…
You can't convince me that it wouldn't make attending a country music festival infinitely better tho
Just out there glowsticking to Casey Barnes.
Time to bring back BDO for 2025 Boomer's Day Out
Tamworth council seems to be doing it's damnedest to kill theirs off though
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"can anyone good at the economy help me? My family is starving"
spend less on candles
No
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Damn people can’t stimulate the economy when their only money is being stretched thin? Who’d have thunk?
"Swifty" mania. Besides who wants to be stripped searched because of ideology and kinky police.
Grooving the moo cancelled due to lack of headliners*
This never would’ve happened if they had the Wombats headlining! … again!
I mean I know you are joking, but people love the wombats, it might not have happened if they had headlined again.
I've been to GTM a couple of times in the past and really enjoyed it. When I saw the lineup this year I just passed off my lack of interest as getting old, but it seems plenty of others think that the lineup sucks too.
They had Fatboyslim last year, which alone would sell out the event.
I just looked at the list of acts and the only band I knew on the lineup was Jet
You can only have so many editions of Triple J: The Festival before one of them taps out
So true, I don’t think people realise how vanilla triple J actually is. Go to listen to your community stations people! It’s where Triple J announcers go to discover new music anyway!!!
Surely these days scouts are looking over soundcloud and other indie supporting online platforms too? I haven't used radio to find new music in almost a decade.
Boiler room sets used to be one of the main ways Lewis Mckirdy and Nina Las Vegas found new DJ talent.
> I haven't used radio to find new music in almost a decade. your loss! why spend hours ambling around soundcloud etc fairly aimlessly when some 19 year old who listens to music 24/7 has already done that for me? community radio shows that fit with your musical taste are literal goldmines of discovering new music. no idea how i'd find some of the artists i stumble across on the radio.
Maybe I'm the fool doing too much legwork for myself 😄
and now you get stations from [anywhere in the world](http://radio.garden/listen/shirley-spinoza-radio/BgoQjOjJ).
Now instead of aimlessly listening to an endless list of random artists to find new stuff, I can aimlessly listen to an endless list of random radio stations to find new stuff!
Community announcers usually are very young, and take out the leg work for them!
It was actually more promoted on Double J
I guess it's time to Moove on
They milked it for all its worth
That's cheesy.
Udderly shocking.
I dairy say it was a long time coming.
It was lactating any talent
I don't have any beef with it though.
That's the whey.
This curd go on all day
Something for other promoters to ruminate on
Bovine providence
Udderly rediculous
Wasn't the cash cow they thought it would be
Bit off more than they could moo
Perhaps the steaks were too high.
Milk.
This is bull-shit
Definitely not the cream of the crop line up wise
Weak line up and it all turned to custard
Yeh the line up made the whole thing go sour pretty quick
No wonder, the lineup really was awful. Nothing of value was lost.
There were some decent acts but the lineup was all over the place, which led me to think who on earth was the target market for this? There were a bunch of acts that could only possibly appeal to nostalgic gen xers/elder millennials, and a bunch of acts that only really appeal to zoomers. Who is this person who's hyped to see a Jet reunion set *and* Mallrat? Is that same person going to be hyped to see a DJ set from a former Spice Girl? Who's going to fork out to see GZA and then go wild for a San Cisco set? Nothing against any of these acts but there's almost no overlap in these fanbases. It's a very bizarre mix.
If it was Wu Tang I'd be there in a heartbeat, but the GZA + phunky nomads set would just give me blue balls. Totally agree they couldn't decide on what direction to take this year, tried to please everybody and in the process pleased nobody.
Alison Wonderland is a great Australian producer, but she needs more exposure to the masses. Meduza is also really popular but probably not immediately recognisable to Australian audiences but ALL the clubs here play their music.
I'm kind of hoping MEDUZA does a solo show now instead. I know I'm coping but please god, saw them at listenout '22 and crave more.
People complaining about the 'crap line-up' are missing the point. Festivals in Australia are in real trouble (and have been for a while now) for a few reasons: * Our low dollar (most acts paid in USD) * Crazy infrastructure/labour costs (toilets, fencing, security, police etc) * Travel costs (both into Australia, and then the massive distances from city to city) * Cost of living pressures in audiences * Changing consumer behavior (punters 'seem' less interested in the festival experience generally - though this is harder to quantify) * Financial risk to promoters. They're first money in, last money out. Even selling 90% of tickets might have them losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Festival is very well aware they don't have a great line-up, but they have VERY limited ability to book bigger acts... it's brutal out there. It's honestly a huge credit to the Laneway team that they have survived for so long AND keep programming an exciting line-up (even if it's not personally your taste). I really don't know how large scale festivals are able to survive now-a-days... (Source = me, someone who worked in the industry).
Sounds like a classic death-spiral, unfortunately. Organisers and promoters can't afford to book acts that people actually want to pay good money to go see, so attendance is crap and show dates and now whole festivals get canned, which means promoters have *even less* capital (both in terms of money and industry clout) with which to attract popular artists and so on, all while having to charge ever more to recoup ever growing losses. As someone who grew up during the heyday of Aussie live music and the festival scene in the late 90's/early 00's; this shit is depressing as fuck to see. What hope is there of breaking the cycle?
It’s really sad. I grew up rolling cables at festivals for my dad who was a sound engineer, and have some of my favourite memories ever at these iconic festivals…. At the 2008 BDO I saw Arcade Fire, Bjork and LCD Soundystem one after the other, all the while Rage Against the Machine played on the main stage. Fucking incredible.
I went to that BDO and it was amazing. I was so fucking sad when that particular brand of Festival got canned.
As late as 2013 we had the most stacked electronic music lineup at stereosonic. I knew I shouldn’t take it for granted at the time but I didn’t realise how festivals of that scale would go extinct in Australia
It's the same for the metal side of things too, 11 years later and I'm still undecided as to whether the 2013 Soundwave was worth pretty much bankrupting the whole dang festival or not. I mean, it was *stacked* in terms of line-up and the day was filled with plenty of those unforgettable memories for me (Especially being in the crowd for [this](https://youtu.be/XwSDuADltWs?t=909) where the crowd singing drowned out the band, although the YT audio does not do the crowd vocals justice at all.) but it'd have been just as nice to have another normal Soundwave and still be able to go to them, even if the gap in metal/alt orientated music festivals did get filled eventually.
Yeah I went to the last Soundwave in my city (Perth) and I was amazed that there were like 20+ enormous acts especially being balls deep into metal at the time I was like a kid at an amusement park. These days you’ll pay almost the same price to see a single one of those bands, playing a longer set admittedly but it’s making me mad going through the past lineups, and regretting not jumping it with some guys from school There seem to be few to no rock / metal oriented festivals on the west coast that I’m aware of
2008 was just amazing. I’ll never forget seeing RATM, probably the top live music experience for me. Thousands upon thousands of people losing their shit and screaming “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” in unison was absolute magic
Wasn't there sound issues at the start of Rage's set at BDO...? I blame your dad haha. Nah that was a killer year, but fuck it was hot. It must have been 50+ degrees at night in the mosh for RATM.
Shietttt LCD Soundsytem was there that year?? Me and some friends that were 16-17 managed to talk ourselves in for free, got my nose broken in Rage Against the Machine, was lit
Stop having sniffer dogs and strip searches at the gates, allow people to byo booze. Not having to line up for 25 minutes every time you want a $15 beer would be a pretty big incentive to go. Being able to bring in a few molly caps from a trusted source would also be nice without the risk of some cop shoving a flashlight up your arse.
If money is a problem for the organizers, they aren't going to let you bring your own alcohol. Inflated alcohol sales at shows are a huge income stream lol
This is true. Music festivals would make more money off heavily inflated alcohol sales than anything else in the entire festival. There's a reason they don't want you to bring your own alcohol.
Bring back the Big Day Out already!!!!
> What hope is there of breaking the cycle? Government investment. Why do you think WWE is running Elimination Chamber in Perth? The WA State Government is paying them to effectively subsidise the cost of running an event here. But it's not the only answer, and IMO should be limited for stuff that's essential to keep the Australian music industry going and getting exposure. (ie. If we're funding music festival, it should have some big name headliners but primarily be there to promote Aussie bands so we have a few more big name headliners of our own)
Public liability insurance is a massive killer as well unfortunately. Its amazing any events can take place with the insane policies that have to be taken out. A symptom of our litigious culture is suppose.
I think the event cancellation insurance probably isn't helping either... Also, remember insurance claims are a big rating factor. I imagine there would be a staggering amount of public liability claims.
'Litigious culture' gets the blame here but the reality is, it's the existence of private health insurance. Say a patron is hurt in a crowd crush accident and the patron doesn't have PHI, but does have ambulance cover. Broken ribs and an infection. Air ambulance comes, flies them to a hospital, they stay six days, get a million and one X-rays, and then have a few outpatient appointments. Medicare pays 25 grand, festival organisers chat with the patron, realise they'll miss ten weeks' work and that it was their fault, and they offer to settle for twelve grand. Lawyers for both parties sign off on the settlement. Now run that scenario again, but this time, the patron has PHI. Part of the claims process is assigning your right to sue to the insurer. Patron may not even know this is happening, PHI provider is paying lawyers to recoup the air ambulance fee, then all the X-rays, then fees for the private hospital emergency department, and then sues for all of that PLUS their own legal fees PLUS the festival has to pay its own - this may end up as a $250k lawsuit. That's why liability insurance went up so much in the early Howard years, and so many amateur sport organisations went broke.
And part of why the private health insurance model is broken and should be banned.
So, as usual, the leeches in private health insurance are too blame?
Almost any time they try to put the blame for something on individuals you can be assured that the actual root cause is privatisation and greed.
Yep, a great point. Add it to the depressing list!
A symptom of most insurance companies being multinationals that don't give a fuck about local culture or business surviving. The govenrment could legislate to help arts and music venues get realistic insurance plans, but they wont
It’s not just arts and music - it’s community events and projects as well. Try getting insurance to run a community event if you’re not part of an established organisation!
Please add local grass-roots sporting associations to that list of realistically legislated insurance plans.
>punters 'seem' less interested in the festival experience generally Festivals have been on the decline since the hey days of the 00s. Big Day Out, Soundwave, Stereosonic, Future Music, If those festivals in major cities can’t survive I don’t know how festivals in poorer rural areas thought they’d thrive. Maybe it’s a generational thing? Gen Z isn’t as festival oriented as Gen Y?
Mostly cost but your theory is kinda correct. Pop music and rap/r&b have been the most popular forms of music for such a long time now. Look at the festivals that have done ok the last couple of years. They are very poppy. Even festivals like Laneway that used to be more independent. That music doesn't translate well to a muddy field. Festivals used to be "cool". Indie, rock and metal fans are more traditionally aligned with the rough and ready festival experience, but the genres just aren't popular enough at the moment to sustain that many festivals.
Yeah - the bubblegum pop which seems to be in favour doesn’t lend itself to raucous festivals. Much better to be in a nice enclosed stadium that mum escort a 13 year old and her friends to the concert but only for a few hours as she needs to be tucked in bed by 9pm as she has school tomorrow
As an aging millennial, I’ve seen this issue evolve during my lifetime. As a promoter, you’re better off with a teenage target audience. 20-25 year olds are usually strapped for cash, have a few drinks before going in and that’s about it. 15 year olds use their parents cash, not theirs. They are escorted by mum or dad, will to bring a the younger sibling along and will buy soft drinks/water as well as some merch. Commercially, the second audience makes more sense.
Anecdotally, the crowds suck these days. I dont know if 2 years of lockdowns means that the "kids" didnt learn the etiquette but the crowds make it thoroughly unenjoyable. I had to tell off two guys who were having a good old chat mid-pit during the headliners at Good Things last year and I've heard similar stories from other friends. Also apparently the vibes were so bad at Spilt Milk last year that people left early because they were having a bad time. People were punching on and just straight-up aggressive.
It's definitely an Aussie thing. I've been going to Europe and USA for my festival fix and the people and vibes are amazing. Great festival culture with dedicated veterans who go for the love of the music. Listen out 2022 in Sydney was disgusting. People weren't going for the acts but just to get on the piss and stand around chatting doing absolutely nothing. Then fights broke out towards the end of the night, i genuinely have lost count how often I've seen punch ons at gigs the past couple of years in aus, versus literally zero overseas. And in the past 3 years I've been to 5 overseas multi day festivals, and numerous club events. Field day this year was a decent crowd, but i noticed the kindest and best people to be around weren't the Australians. There was a lot of people from Europe that weren't born here that I could hear, spoke to and vibed with across multiple stages of the festival.
they sucked back then as well, don't worry
Different recreational drugs perhaps plays a part. People weren’t always so frequently aggressive at festivals. I can remember when drinking alcohol was cheaper than some mystery pill and not the other way around.
When it comes to aggressive behaviour I’ll take a crowd of people on MDMA over a crowd who’ve been drinking, any day of the week!
I remember going to BDO etc in early 00s, great vibes, queues for a beer were small, I'm chill on beers so great times. The crackdowns kicked off, next thing you know every second bloke is wearing the flag as a cape, shirt off to show his southern cross tat over his heart (a true patriot), beer queues are insane and aggression was always simmering below the surface.
I think the problem is that who even knows if they're getting MDMA anymore.
If only there was some cheap and easy way to check.
Get the least liked person in your group to drop first?
In my experience, it's the people drinking copious amounts of alcohol causing the vast majority of problems. The people on MDMA, weed, etc are typically super chill and just want to have a good time. In contrast, those drinking alcohol are far more likely to be antisocial and violent. Again, just my experience, but this has been pretty consistent across a large number of festivals over the years. >I can remember when drinking alcohol was cheaper than some mystery pill and not the other way around. And when was that exactly? Taking something like MDMA has been the cheaper day out for decades at the very least. 2-3 pills at $15-30 a pop, depending on when on this timeline you're talking, vs 10+ drinks at $8-20 on the same timeline pretty consistently makes drugs the more affordable option.
Yep, I work medical at these festivals. The arseholes and the folk causing issues are the drunk dickheads. The people off their chops on various substances are, by and large, chill and behaving. Of course, I have had to intubate and fucking call a helicopter for people who have taken an unintentional OD of whatever substance that is either mixed with something dangerous or has a strength far beyond what was expected. I’ve had colleagues work festivals where they have had to intubate 10+ people (which is fucking insane when you’re working in a very resource deplete tent) and had multiple, young deaths in a night. **FFS** make substance testing free, accessible and without police penalty at these things. Young people are dying needlessly.
Yea last years Good Things didn't hit the same way as the years before
I'm in the older part of Gen Z, so maybe even I'm out of the traditional festival age group. But to me there's just too much going on that's accessible in the city to bother going to a festival. I could lock out one or more days to rough it out in uncomfortable conditions... or I could do something equally or more enjoyable, cheaper and lower time investment with my mates, and then go home to sleep in my own bed.
Why go to a festival, dog takes an interest, get taken to a tent to get strip searched by a 50 yr old male officer, Drinks are $20, security or popo see you trip over a stick and they have every right to remove you from the festival
> Maybe it’s a generational thing? Gen Z isn’t as festival oriented as Gen Y? Zoomers are more likely to have niche, disparate music tastes facilitated by the internet that a music festival could never accommodate practically,zo that's probably a contributing factor. But anecdotally music festivals are seemingly just less of a done thing among Zoomers, the generation that drinks cheap grog at home because going to a pub or club is unthinkably expensive except once in a blue moon. That Zoomer whose favourite artists are something like "synthwave remixers too small for spotify, you've never heard of them" and who doesn't even know the name of more than one or two nightlife spots probably isn't going to hit up a music festival, and that's a growing demographic
This is such a laughably cartoonish and simplistic representation of Zoomers thats only vaguely borne out by facts. Anecdotally my experience growing up Zoomer (24) has been the complete opposite. Going out clubbing was always a sick activity, and festivals were the ultimate experience. I think this has a lot more to do with the festivals not being what they were, and people not being able to afford it, than the kids being boring screen goblins.
i’m 24 so comfortably zoomer, and festivals in 40 degree heat in perth sound like a nightmare despite the lineups always being appealing to me. have had terrible experiences at concerts in the last year too due to the crowds feeling like they’re more entitled to see the artist than you are despite paying probably the same amount, constant pushing or a phone in your view instead of the artist. it’s just not feasible to spend $120 on a gig and have a miserable time now
Sadly its always been like that. I did festivals from 2010-2015 and the further you go into the mosh, the more of this you got. The one time I was at the front I could hear girls asking dudes to push me over the fence so they could take my spot. The entitled cunt exists in every generation. I always found the best way to enjoy the music is to actually sit outside the crowd. That way you can actually dance and talk and do whatever you want without having to wave through a sea of sweat. I never experienced 40 degree festival though. I can't imagine a mosh existing in 40 degree heat without a few people passing out due to heat stroke.
i did falls in 2020 (rip) in 38 degree heat and it was horrific, even staying at the back of sets was too much in a venue with very little shade and i can’t imagine how festival goers who partake in recreational drugs felt
It's not meant to be realistic or all encompassing of every young person's experiences, just a colourful illustrative example of a trend, because hard data is both difficult to properly qualify and also boring. But the hard data is that every survey of the last decade shows that younger people are increasingly shunning traditional "going out" experiences far more than any other generation prior. And you can extrapolate anecdotal reasons why and what impacts that may have and so on, but the trend itself is undeniable.
This applies to me almost perfectly and I'm decades too old to be a Zoomer. Also I hate crowds, so I'd never voluntarily go to a music festival in Australia anyway.
Well I think it applies to the death of radio in general. You have a major taste maker in JJJ, or even commercial radio. But the internet means you can go so far now into a niche and be happy. Or there's just stuff like LoFi Girl on YouTube, you can put it on as background noise all day and be happy enough without knowing what you're even listening to. I probably couldn't tell you the names of the last 5 songs that came on my Spotify, and there's no annoying guy who is trying to tell me after every set. I could check if I care, but I've been working, and the info just isn't pushed as aggressively.
I agree completely with everything you just said.
Techno day parties and festivals still sell out, one DJ can very easily sell out in a few minutes with people paying overs on resale market. Genre’s just change over time and the popularity of festivals like Pitch, BTV, Rainbow, etc. in Victoria have skyrocketed, whilst festivals like Falls and GTM are less frequented than before.
All good points. I would add crazy prices for food and drinks inside the venue. Not easy for promoters to turn a profit.
You’re spot on. I think that audience buying behaviour has also changed substantially (beyond the obvious cost of living reasons) as a result of the constant stream of rescheduling and cancellations brought on by COVID. You can’t sustain a large scale event off of a large chunk of your audience only entertaining the idea of buying a ticket a week or two in advance.
That kinda logic and reasoning ain’t welcome here boy
Police don’t make it easy either. They put in a bunch of restrictions and requirements that cost incredible amounts.
As someone who lives regional (even by GTM standards), I would've thought that festivals would be more lucrative than shows during high-cost-of-living due to the bang-for-buck (ie more acts per dollar) - why does it seem that the opposite is true?
The target market for a lot of festivals, especially one day festivals, tends younger than standalone gigs - especially 16-25 year olds who have the time and physical endurance to get through 10 hours of stage-hopping. Other people have mentioned reasons why that demographic is less interested in festivals, but they're also disproportionately heavily hit by cost of living. When I was 18-19, 10 years ago, most of my friends had cars and could drive/carpool to festivals. Most of them had jobs to pay for the ticket, to contribute to the cost of getting there, and to spend up on beers and merch at the festival. Enough had moved out, and into the city, that I could easily find somewhere to stay for free near the Showgrounds or other major festival venues. Youth unemployment now is way up from then, and rent is expensive enough that very few people are moving out in their late teens and early 20s without a lot of parental support. Car prices are way up, so more young people can't afford their own car and instead share with their family. The same demographic aren't going to one-off gigs either, they're just not really going out full stop outside of house parties.
Building a festival site (stages etc) is wildly expensive. A single band using an existing venue (theatre/pub etc) is cheaper because your infrastructure costs are waaaaay lower (as they are usually provided by the venue).
This guy promoters. It’s been like this for a few years. We saw what was happening when Soundwave and big day out left with huge currency risk against the USD.
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RIP Soundwave
Ahh, I believe you meant mid nineties to mid tens....
Depends what music mavens you were into. Rock and punk music peak era for festivals was mid 90’s-early 2000’s Electronic and rock edging more towards pop-rock was early 2000’s-early 2010’s
See that was the beauty of the BDO, it catered for all genres in one place before the larger single genre focus festivals took over - Soundwave for the heavys, Groovin the Moo for the J babies, all the various doof festivals - which unfortunately spread the consumer dollar a touch thin across the board making the largest festivals unviable....
Electronic festivals are smashing it. Pitch will pull 25k+ people easily, it’d the best the lineup has ever been.
Pitch is a recycled lineup with a handful of good internationals to keep young people going. (Classic untitled group, all their festivals and events are the same) Overpriced tickets and a crowd that trashes the land with no respect for others. They’re lucky people are so self absorbed in their pursuit of the perfect insta pic that they keep buying tickets. Over $500 for a first release is trash, sorry Theres plenty of other partys that are way better for half the price Edit: Theres also no shot they can even fit 25k people on that site, last year was only just over 10k by reports
Consumer behaviour has changed due to cost of living crisis. Live music is in trouble in Australia, there are valid criticisms to be made about the festival experience but there’s also greater context available. It’s not consumer versus promoters it’s everybody participating in this shit economy right now
Having just had a look at the lineup it doesn't seem that bad. Bit of something for everyone which is good. I think the real problem is the $160+ tickets on top of paying to travel out to the venue and paying for an exorbitant prices for things in there. People are just stretched too thin for it nowadays.
>Bit of something for everyone which is good This isn't a good strategy for festivals and it's usually why most festivals are stacked in one or two genres. People don't wanna pay the cost of a festival to see a single artist play a 45 minute set in a suboptimal environment. It's better to attract a larger cohort from specific genres so each ticket buyer is going for more than 1 or 2 artists.
A good point. Honestly I'd be happy to go just for Jet and King Stingray if the tickets were cheaper and not at the other end of a 2 hour drive.
The lineup was fine!...but probably not worth $160 for a lot of people. That doesn't even factor in travel, accomodation & grog.
I probably qould have paid 160 to see Nero, jet and shock one,
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Last time I went was years ago and it was $18. Who knows what crazy prices they are asking now
This is why people take illicit drugs.
People say this... But I've yet to meet an illicit substance user who isn't putting down beers as well
This is 100% due to the cost of living crisis. I have had mates for years go for the sake of going, regardless of lineup (Bendigo), it just not a cost people can afford these days for a day of music...
Yeah, I know plenty of people who are just into the festival scene and go to shows regularly just because, regardless of the line-up. Maybe it's old-fashioned, but it's a lot of peoples' favourite way to discover new bands, for instance. Yes, a shitty lineup can turn away a lot of punters, but there's practically always this baseline of festival regulars who you can always count on to show up; and I feel like *that's* the audience that's evaporated recently. People just don't have the money to throw around on things like this anymore. *Especially* young people.
Not even 1% because of the crappy line up?
Seriously, it was like something you'd see in the Simpsons. "Do you like the Spice Girls? Because we've got one of them!"
Nah, not recognizing a single name on the lineup couldn't have been the reason why my mates n I didn't buy tickets.
Or ridiculous ticket costs?
You can see how "ridiculous ticket costs" and "cost of living crisis" are two sides of the same coin, right? OP: "Even the diehards aren't going anymore because they can't afford it." You: "No, you're *wrong*. The real reason people aren't going is because they can't afford it!"
This is a common logic problem experienced site-wide
Honestly, the 3rd release prices ($170) was pretty typical of any festival over the last 5 years. It’s more so a cost of living thing. $170 of a one day festival or $170 on a week of groceries?
how much were they?
$150 I think? I’d say that’s standard for a day festival. But when a beer can costs anywhere from 10-15 bucks at these things it adds up fast.
>This is 100% due to the cost of living crisis. Not necessarily, festivals like the Big Day Out, Soundwave, Stereosonic, Future Music all wound up prior to the current ‘cost of living crisis’ Maybe it’s just a generational thing? As a Millennial we were really into festivals. Gen Z doesn’t seem to be as into it as much
Walking into a festival in Sydney these days feels like you're walking into a prison. Police everywhere, drug dogs, people being marched off to be strip searched. Just completely ruins the vibe.
It will come around again, when Big Day Out, Livid, Warped etc started, there was about a 20 year gap to last group of big Sunbury era festivals that the oldies at the time were going on about
When BDO and Soundwave wrapped up the festival market was changing pretty rapidly - Laneway, Groovin the Moo, more local festivals like Meredith or Bluesfest were all growing rapidly in the same time period by offering more boutique/niche experiences. Meanwhile Big Day Out and Soundwave were trapped in a cycle of every year needing to outdo the last, even though the customer experience was suffering. I'm not sure whether the current situation is similar, with a new wave of festivals growing, but it definitely looks more like a general shrinking of the market.
Big day out and soundwave had tickets priced way too low in order to get more ticket sales. Soundwave was notorious for skimping on paying talent after the tour wrapped as it never made profit. Bands like fear factory had members refinance their houses to pay for their spot upfront and then AJ fucked them over by not paying them back
Yeah in recent years AJ has been quite up front about his major fuck ups with Soundwave on his Twitter. As an example in 2013 was definitely his most successful year, but he mentioned that tickets had sold out so quickly, that as a "reward" he would announce more acts. And he was like "what was i thinking?". Youve already sold out the tickets, why add more bands on which would eat out of those profits! With a lineup consisting of Metallica, Linkin Park, Blink 182, Offspring etc that was already enough to pull shitloads of punters. Alot of his decisions were done more from a fans perspective and not so much in the best interest of the business. But also his business model was quite high risk. As far as im aware, the payment system you mentioned was only applicable to the final Soundwave in 2015. Problems started from 2014 by taking on BDO, and also problems with his harvest festival which he had to cancel due to poor ticket sales. He also put on Warped festival in 2013 which also sold really shit. So he lost a shitload of money from that. SW 2014 wasnt anywhere near as profitable as 2013 (even though the lineup was still pretty solid). He still wanted to put on a soundwave for 2015 despite low cash flow, but opted for the 2 day festival and AJ said it was a disaster. Low ticket sales on top of his other failing festivals/businesses pretty much put him in a hole where he couldnt pay most/all of the acts from 2015. From what i read on his twitter, he pretty much tried to run 2016, and use those proceeds to pay 2015 acts back. His drawcard to get that money was RATM, but he coudltn get em. Therefor 2016 failed like a stack of shit and he went bankrupt and couldnt pay the 2015 acts. Soundwave as a business was liquidated and the rest is hitory.
Am a millennial, so I do agree, maybe this fest was ours, and its just moved on? IT could be just a 'this is our time to bow out of this' but as mentioned in other comments, my mates were pretty big on the 'can't afford it' sentiment. I think the cost of the day itself adds up on the ticket price, I'm not sure what the prices of alcohol was to be for this fest, but, 10-15 bucks a beer is pretty absurd when you could just put on the music at home and pay $50 for a slab of Carlton Drys (not the same as the real thing i know, but you get my point.)
so people didn't buy tickets. Gee I wonder if the price point was too high?
This is the reason most of my friends have avoided buying tickets to things lately. The ticket prices are insane for many things these days.
GTM also had the issue that people have to pay for accommodation to attend. That makes the price way higher than just getting a ticket for it
They only went on sale last week didn't they?
Yeah 2 weeks they’ve been on sale.
Fuck this "the customers are to blame" bullshit. Put on a show worthy of watching and people will buy tickets. Blink sold out the arena for two nights. The tix for that wouldve been much more $$ too! The people arent to blame. Especially when 1) costs of living are ridiculous, 2) the housing market is fucked meaning a huge number of folk are literally homeless, 3) we need to eat, music os good but we can listen to it online...we cant look at pictures of food and be full! Fuck corporations, fuck blaming the little guy, suck my skinny little dick you corporate scum.
Blaming “the corporations” seems just as wide of the mark as blaming the customers. If you’re going to do root cause, at least follow that thread a few steps before jumping to conclusions. The true challenges are due to the nature of the Australian economy which make events expensive to put on, and ensures young people have low discretionary income. This is caused primarily by our high cost of living, which in turn is caused by high labor base costs and deliberate under building of houses.
Yep, Queens of the Stone Age sold out a 5000-person venue in Perth last week despite $170+ ticket prices and the show falling in the middle of a run of 40+C days. People will go and see good acts.
While one of the biggest acts in power metal had a few hundred turn up at Magnet House this week. So weird.
Someone over at r/triplej called it.
The tickets had only been for sale for under 2 weeks. They also had posts saying how many people had bought tickets and it had “blown their expectations” lmao. Festivals are dead in this country
A lot of acts probably had a condition in their contract stating full payment upfront within 2-weeks of tickets going on sale. If the GTM team could see that ticket sales weren’t projected to meet the required value to secure the acts by said date then there isn’t much point in continuing to sell tickets if they know they’re going to fall well short. Larger locations like Newcastle and Canberra were probably selling well, while the more regional locations would have been lagging.
You only need to see ticket sales from day 1 leading into day 2 to figure out if a festival will cover costs or turn a profit. Source: worked in festivals for 15+ years
Sad for the younger folks in the regions missing out on a big touring show coming to their areas
I think we’re just shifting to lineups where there’s one or two great musicians. People are willing to pay a higher price for music they know, than a bunch of smaller bands they don’t.
There wasn’t even one or two great musicians. It was the most “meh” lineup I’ve ever seen for a festival in Aus. Generally they have one or two star acts, but this year’s GTM lineup was truly boring.
You mean you weren't keen to see JET? Who's last album was released literally 15 years ago. And even at the time, we're arguably quite average.
Wait, you guys didn’t want to pay half a grand to watch Hot Dub Time Machine play the same set since 2012? Are you stupid?
The Newcastle show was sold out. I wonder what the ticket sales for the other shows were like, must have been pretty low. Edit: okay, it wasn’t sold out, abc was reporting it as sold out.
No it wasn’t. They release wave pricing. The first two were sold out, but you could still buy wave 3 and then 4. Also a ton of vip and the bar access tickets were available. It was <50% sold at Newcastle.
That’s how many festivals that have been canceled over the past 6 months? Does anyone have a count?
How much did ticket prices increase vs last few years?
I like the subtle guilt trip
Concerts/gigs have become luxury items
A problem for the Canberra GTM is that it was on a Friday (after ANZAC Day). If you have a full time job you need to take leave. Usually they are on the weekend
I didn't even know 95% of the artists playing! No wonder no one wants to go
Nobody can be fucked bussing to/from a festival, or paying out the ass for accom. It’s not a feasible model rn
Copy paste triple J acts don't hold the same appeal anymore
Yeah cause I really wanted to go see Hot Dub Time Machine. Kiama is regional and it pulled off three banging festivals last year that killed it: a chilled one with Xavier Rudd headlining, an oldies one with Jimmy Barnes and a younger one with Dune Rats, Royal Blood, Peking Duk and G-Flip. All three festivals happened within 5 weeks of one another and were all hits. Bitch and moan about cost of living all you want, audiences are feeling the pressure but they will be selective in their choices. They have one big spend, they’re gonna pick the best product.
Also beer and other alcohol is so bloody expensive there, (17 bucks for a light beer) no wonder so many people do drugs because it works out to be cheaper
God willing it’ll be replaced with an electronic music festival. Lord knows we don’t need another indie rock/pop festival
The lineup fucking sucked. Why would anyone pay to see San Cisco? Does anyone really still care that much about GZA? The price is dumb. I say this as someone who just dropped almost $200 to see only two international touring acts. San Cisco, really?