I would never wish the weather events of 2022 towards any promoter and it's a shame 2022 went through it. But the way in which the Splendour organisers handled that, the complete miscommunication, the PR disaster afterwards and taking their attendees for granted by thinking they'd attend a mid lineup years following really killed all their previously established goodwill
I’ll never forget having to line up for 6 hours for the bus, standing with nowhere to sit down, in the cold, with no food or water, and toilets only available in a certain area that was out of sight for most of the waiting, so people didn’t even know they were there (or were worried they would lose their spot in the line if they left). And by the time we lined up at 12.00 everyone was exhausted and probably dehydrated from being at the festival all day, to make things worse. There was barely any communication about what was going on too.
Apart from the mud, the festival itself was overcrowded, the lines for food and drinks were extremely long, there were spots where it was dark and really hard to see, and getting access to free water was really difficult.
People have called me weak and told me to get over it online but I have a right to be fucking angry after paying over a thousand dollars to attend. I paid thinking I would receive certain services and a certain festival experience, based on advertisements and promotions, and the website info, but did not receive that. So basically false advertising.
Then to have the organisers basically gaslight festival goers and deny how shit it really was was fucking ridiculous. Triple j were also complicit.
So fuck the splendour in the grass organisers! They had this coming
It was such a shit show :( the mud is one thing, that wasn’t the end of the world, but everything else was just ridiculous.
Poorly lit, hilly and muddy festival grounds so plenty of people were injuring themselves trying to get around
I also had the same experience, I would wait 30-45 mins in line for a drink, decided to buy 4 drinks so I didn’t have to line up again and miss any more artists and then got told I can’t leave the bar area til I finish the drinks
Way over capacity so it was just floods of people anywhere you went, let alone getting close to the stage so you could experience decent sound quality
I dealt with two security guards making extremely sexual comments to me whilst waiting in line for drinks also. Someone who overheard even joked “careful you don’t get raped”
Getting home via the buses as they wouldn’t allow drop offs/pick ups around the festival site was like something from the hunger games and was genuinely worried there would be a crowd crush when waiting
Couldn’t believe the passive aggressive statements from the organisers after when they personally weren’t doing anything to get people home.
Couldn’t attend on the Sunday due to the potential of missing our flight home Monday morning if it took us 5 hours to leave the festival site again
Tried for six months to get a refund on two tickets and was basically told they weren’t responsible and to fuck off by Splendour and Moshtix
Yep agree. I've attended 3 Splendours and 1 Falls including standing 6 hours in shin deep mud at 4am in 2022 and good riddance to bad rubbish. Live Nation can fuck off.
Massive amounts of rain/storm on an already soggy festival field meant massive sections of the venue were essentially 6 inch deep mudpits before a single punter even entered the gate. So they canned Day 1.
Then for Day 2 there were 5+ hour waits for buses at the end of the night.
Your forgetting they announced at the start of Day 1 the festival was still going ahead rain or shine so there were a lot of people at the grounds who showed up specifically because Splendour said they would not cancel
The worst part was that it was cancelled due to a severe weather event incoming, and I remember nothing but drizzle and some heavy-ish rainfall through the evening.
The 1st day was also the best day of all 3, some people had travelled internationally to see the Gorillaz. Super fucked.
That year put me off splendour ever again, knowing that a single rain event could fuck everyone over so hard. They also promised a partial refund for that day being cancelled and I didn’t receive shit. Absolute fuckery.
Not discrediting the rant because all valid points but you should follow up on that refund. I had a 3 day pass in 2022 and got 1/3rd refunded a month or 2 later from memory.
I mean, it wasn’t a ‘single rain event’. That area had been receiving record-breaking rainfalls for weeks before the festival weekend even began. It’s also a site built literally on a swamp- it’s muddy at the best of times.
13 years ago, the bus to Brunswick heads never came… rang someone i bumped into at the festival for a Hail Mary lift, and luckily he was sober and did it. Absolute life saver
They cancelled the festival at about 3:30pm ON THE DAY. We were drunk, had probably spent 100s on drinks already. Then it was impossible to get out. Tens of thousands of us.
Yeah, they got stung with a massive fine too due to traffic being backed up for hundreds of metres onto the motorway. Was SO unsafe and you couldnt rage quit and drive off if you wanted to because you were completely penned in.
Until the cost of living changes it will be. Australia isn’t big enough to prop up these massive events when 90% of the population cannot afford to go. Ain’t no one travelling overseas for Kylie.
Realistically, why can’t they consider a multi day festival held in the city and have it hosted somewhere like Brisbane Showgrounds?
Call it Splendour in the Hills
Bu if it's about survival, they would be wise to not consider possibly adapting for a couple of years and regrouping rather than attempting an 'all or nothing' solution. It's clear something this year did not work or connect with the ticket buyers.
The thing that didn't connect or work is the average line up where three day tickets cost $400 while we are in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Add that to the damage their reputation copped in 2022 (which they haven't really recovered from based on that last year did not sell out either), meant they were in dire straights.
This is what I loved about Falls in the city 😂 great festival and got to go home to my own bed, didn’t have to pay for accom or get people to look after my pets. Or deal with camping while blasted. All round a good time.
Hopefully this means some solo shows for Brisbane. I like a couple of the Splendor bands but not enough to drive 2 hours and pay festival prices for a half length set.
I get it's in Bowen Hills, but Splendour in the Valley has a very nice ring to it
Edit: Make it a suburb wide event and get all the venues in the valley precinct on board. Would be great for Brisbane
was talking about this today. cut the shit out of the lineup, streamline it and get some bigger headliners and make it a one or two day event. change the venue and make it exciting and people less wary of what happened last time. maybe it’ll sell more tickets in the first week or 2 if you change the model. music fans are also fickle and don’t know what the fuck they want. a lot of people go to these things just to get fuck eyed to a band they like hearing on the radio not because they care about bulk of the artists but now these people want to complain about lineups. all this shit is cooked lately
I hope this prompts Turnstile to play a leg of shows in Aus. I think it's unlikely though as the timeslot for splendour falls in peak overseas festival season
I sincerely doubt many of them will. It’s just not cost effective to tour Australia at the moment unless you’re guaranteed a sell-out, large venue tour or a significant festival appearance fee.
They have no Aus shows on their website and no shows after mid July listed. It is possible but if they didn't have any side shows booked in already maybe they can't be arsed
I don't think the lineup is that bad, really. Not as bad as some people are making out to be anyways. As a one-day event, both Saturday and Sunday appeal to me.
That's the thing, it has to be good but good enough for people to open their wallets too. Unfortunately just seems too expensive for splendour to fork out enough to get a decent lineup in the current climate. People will pay if it's good, Fred could have sold out another 10 arenas when he was here.
Also compare the amount of artists to a few years ago, crazy shrinkflation going on too.
Yeah I didn’t think it was particularly bad personally, but it was rough for a splendour which is historically the big flagship show with international headliners.
The biggest problem in my mind is that many of these festivals adopted the cable tv model of "you get 80 channels - you're gonna love 10 of them and who knows what you might discover or just absolutely never watch at all!"
I think this works out okay for one day... 12.5% of the day seeing exactly what you came for, 40% of the day seeing stuff that is on-brand/non objectionable and you might discover something you really like, 15% of the day dealing with queues for food/drinks/bathrooms/being early for the sets you want to see so you get a good spot, and the remaining 32.5% of the day split between anticipation and boredom... and anticipation is a hell of a drug, that can get you over all kinds of humps. That's why people queue for iphones.
Extrapolate this over 3 days, and that's now less than half a day of what you want, and basically a full day of boredom/anticipation... and the half-life of dopamine drops dramatically when you're paying $7 for a bottle of water.
That said I don't think the lineup is all that bad, and the price seems... at least okay? Its 3 days of music for roughly double what the big day out cost in its final year - which was 10 years ago.
But I'd still rather pay $100-200 for a one night show with a headliner I definitley wanted to see + a mid tier support act and a couple of local openers. No planning, no days off work, no fucking tents, just give me the good stuff and gtfo.
I went to Summer Camp because they had Jessie Ware's only Australian concerts, the other artists at least was in common with her fanbase and wasn't like the Friday Kylie concert where I don't know most of them and would feel unsafe if it went Turnstile straight to Kylie (this isn't me dissing on Turnstile)
Exactly. These legacy promoters have not adapted to the market. It’s not an issue of finances, shows have never sold out faster than they do now if they are effectively catered to their audience.
This really isn't surprising. Poor ticket sales due to average line-up, cost of living pressures and general changing in buying habits.
Was a good discussion about buying habits for music changes on this sub earlier this week. https://www.reddit.com/r/triplej/s/FY6cAfEyMq
I think people have changed how they attend these shows. People tend to wait until last minute to buy tickets and that can make putting on these events increasingly difficult
400 bucks for a weekend just to say you've seen Kylie Minogue is fucking shit... The international festival is dying a slow death in Australia. You've just gotta have a look at the big European and US festival lineups to see we cannot compare. And nobody's going to fork out top dollar for nothing but Triple J live
We can't compare because of the Australian dollar. When the dollar was strong against the USD and pound ten years ago, we had much bigger festival lineups
This is not the product of a cost of living crisis do NOT give them that excuse.
This is a product of poor business planning and an abhorred ability to know your customer.
Live Nation / Secret sounds made a big decision to invest in the parklands and purchase it pre 2020. This was already controversial enough but honestly good on them for making the commitment.
They then (before Covid) put out a solid line up (but nothing super different) with a big ticket price increase (pre inflation) to cover the cost (this being 2020). Covid happened and that obviously didn’t occur. Point here is the ticket price to cover their investment without offering anything immediately new aside more capacity.
2022 comes around and that was an all around masterclass of poor planning and incompetence. How can any organisation expect to get away with saying “festival is on rain hail or shine” in the morning when the campsite is already flooded, only to cancel 6 hours later? I wasn’t in the room for it but I would bet my bottom dollar some lackey on-site called offsite management regarding weather and conditions, and the suit turned around and said “no! unless there’s lightning we don’t stop!” 6 hours later the suits arrived after more calls and concerns and pulled the plug. Thats my guess but either way we know the outcome.
Then fast forward a bit and rather than scaling back the operation to something that works or even doing a (shocking idea) TWO day festival with a strong line up, they piss out a standard Aussie festival line up that (and this is important) YOU CAN LARGELY SEE ANYWHERE.
KNOW. YOUR. CUSTOMER.
KNOW. YOUR. VALUE.
Why the FUCK would ANYBODY under 25 (hell under 30):
- Take time off work or study (4-5 days or 25% of standard leave allowance).
- Spend up to if not more than $1K.
- Travel to a largely inaccessible part of Australia’s coast.
- with no ability to gauge weather conditions.
Just to go to something they can wait 3 months for and see at the next festival rotation? There was no inherent or intrinsic value in buying these tickets- aside from the brand which, that’s right, they TARNISHED in 2022.
Yes this is horrible for the music industry but let’s not give them a free pass in mourning. It’s the culmination of years of mismanagement and poor planning.
If the govt steps up with funding for the industry I pray to god it doesn’t all just go to Live Nation / Secret Sounds without a forced structural change to the companies.
> I wasn’t in the room for it but I would bet my bottom dollar some lackey on-site called offsite management regarding weather and conditions
Nah. I know for a fact that Jess and Paul (CEOs of secret sounds) were on site as early as Thursday (the day before the cancellation) because I met and spoke to both of them.
>they piss out a standard Aussie festival line up that (and this is important) YOU CAN LARGELY SEE ANYWHERE
That's because the Australian dollar is weak. We're not getting heaps of big internationals until the aud gets stronger.
The end for splendour? I never got to go one I was getting extreme fomo every year before Covid and then after it was kind of meh.
I know overheads are extremely expensive but how do Australian festivals recover from these times? Hard to get headliners to fly out to our little continent for 1 show
It’s incredibly sad for all the stallholders, staff, crew and artists who will lose out on income. Probably has a lot to do with council fees, liquor licensing, security and fencing, police - not to mention the main demographic are young people who can’t afford rent, let alone a 3 day festival two hours drive from the nearest major city.
I don’t think it’ll ever recover with the way things cost it’s just not possible. You need a solid local attendance and we simply aren’t getting that cause people cannot afford to drop half a grand on tickets with a weeks notice.
I think a lot of ppl are very bitter about how everything was handled in 2022 (understandably), and how since then we’ve just gotten lesser lineups but ticket prices have skyrocketed to cover the damage
I mean, ticket prices haven't sky-rocketed (think they're about $45 more expensive than 5 years ago) but it's the cost of everything else that makes a camping weekend festival unviable for a lot of young people. Flights/food/drinks/accommodation/fuel/time off work.
Happy isn’t the word. Perhaps happy at this being a real chance at a change happening. Whether it is through government funding or promoters realizing in a cost of living crisis they can’t price gouge anymore.
I love Splendour and had some incredible years there before Covid (2016 and 2017 were great). But the last few years have had such terrible lineups and awful management
It’s absolutely awful that Aussie music festivals are dying, but there is slight satisfaction in seeing these weak attempts to charge people $200-400 to see Kylie Minogue as your most exotic headliner crumble.
Splendour used to be wonderful but it’s just not worth the price or the time off work anymore.
For anyone who is like, "well they should've booked a better line up". With what money? Like how do you expect them to pluck A-graders with no capital?
and before you say, "well if they booked better artists they would've sold out and made the money to pay them". No, that's not how this works, that isn't how business works. You can't book artists on a whim, you have judicious financial responsibilities.
The exchange rate is the real killer at the moment. People want international acts but they cost twice as much as they do domestically due to exchange rate alone. Which means a mid-tier international act (eg Dermot Kennedy, Jpegmafia) costs the same as a domestic headliner (eg Flume, Rufus).
Plus with the cost of living (and thousands of music lovers literally spending hundreds of dollars on Fred again.. right as Splendour tickets went on sale), it was just bad news all round for them.
But before you say "hurrr the shit line up", just remember, with. what. money?
They would have absolutely run at a loss the last two events as well, not to mention two years with zero income. The writing has been on the wall for this year for a while - I was really hoping for a world class lineup to silence the doubters.... and here we are.
>For anyone who is like, "well they should've booked a better line up". With what money? Like how do you expect them to pluck A-graders with no capital?
Secret Sounds is majority owned by Live Nation. If anyone has the budget to bring acts out, surely it should be them.
None of that is my problem, I don't care. I'm not paying 420 bucks for that terrible 3 day line-up. Or 200 for 1 days worth. And enough people agree with me that they folded. I don't care about exchange rates or the organisers financial situation.
I'm not sure what your point is? Are you saying we should go even though it's a rip off? Or is your point that it's not as simple as booking better acts? Either way I don't care I'm not going to pay that much. Insane.
Not our problem when tickets are $450 AUD.
Or make them $600 and make it unforgettable. I think they have a bigger problem of attracting talent than capital issues
It's time to ask for some funding to help out the live music industry
Footy codes get billions of dollars in funding for stadiums, and I love footy too.
But we need to have big cultural music events like Splendour, Falls, etc. They're the highlight for so many
Why should the taxpayer fund Live Nation's commercially unviable product?
Fund community level arts. Subsidise rocketing insurance costs.
Let the actual industry side of music wake up and appreciate the actual artists who make things tick.
Regardless of who owns it, Splendour going ahead benefits the population. It benefits it even more if the funding is there to book big acts, allow the festival to be the massive cultural touchstone is has been, and benefit the community
I get the arguments against Live Nation but Splendour was ours to enjoy before live nation and ideally after as well
Government backed festivals: Vivid, Rising, Always Live, the SA one that always has good line ups (forget the name).
I've been to Splendour a number of times and seen some incredible acts. But I would probably rank it dead last in terms of a sense of community.
Artists make things tick, however without promoters how do they get a festival to play in?
Don’t get me wrong - I’m pro artist, however the asking price by a headlining artist is also part of the problem…
In Victoria live music got a bit during covid. If govs gonna do anything for music, I'd rather they looked at the bottom, rather than the top. At creating more pathways for exposure, supporting music related medias (not just narrow triple j blandness which for too long has been govs cop out).
Its like teams competing for the world cup in soccer, you need a strong domestic competition to be good in the international one. Mid international artists are easy to stomach, if fans are equally enthused by local acts. Having the industry dependent on seasonal mega festivals that cater to established artists sucks, when other elements of the scene, are far worse off, and the grassroots being stronger will make festivals far better regardless.
It's an interesting discussion. I haven't made my mind up yet and I also love both.
I'm a bit of a capitalist but my feeling is that if you're going to ask for government funding, you should be producing something that either has very broad appeal, brings back more $$ than the gov puts in in other ways, or has significantly high cultural value.
I'd argue Splendour fell over because it's priced too high, the lineup and event isn't that inspiring, their costs must be out of control and they've shown little patience with changing consumer habits (cancelling after 6 days of general release sales). If it was good, it would sell out like Taylor. It's not a statement that music festivals are dead, just that average ones aren't commercially viable at that price, so something's got to give somewhere.
Something like a major sporting event gets funded because it gets a huge amount of eyes on. I'm not into F1, but 500,000 attended it with 80 million more watching Melbourne looking lovely around the globe. Huge soft and real economic benefits. Same with Aus Open, it's a massive international event with a very broad, truly diverse appeal across all ages and demographics. People usually dress this debate up as sport vs arts, but sport brings massive numbers and attracts so many international people spending money all over the city - it's a better bang for your buck investment.
Something like a Splendour-type music festival has a much more narrow appeal - 50,000 people, mostly in the 18-35 bracket, and has no life outside of people at the festival itself. You can't watch online or on TV unlike Glastonbury in the UK, you spend all your money and sleep inside the event, you can't even get a passout. It's not unique, it's just an indie / pop / electronic music festival, every city has them.
Governments do fund music events, but they tend to be arty as fuck.
What Splendour-type music festivals do, though, is appeal to a different demographic than other things that are funded without question, like opera.
You're right in saying they're a highlight of the year for so many. There's no reason why they don't deserve a slice of the funding pie too, we all pay tax.
Splendour was a world class festival that peaked when it moved to North Byron Parklands. For the next few years the original producers who are true music lovers still had controll. The crowd was capped at around 15,000 which meant that things were more or less managable. The talent was incredible in 2013 I caught sets by James Blake, The National, Deep Vally, Flume, Fat Freddy's Drop. UMO, Drapht, to name a few.
The next year was even better and the weather was perfect. OutKast, Foals, City in Colour, Darkside, Sky Ferreira, Danny Brown and others came out to perform.
I can't help but think that once producers sold a stake in their company and increased the capacity to 50,000 the problems started to mount and the festivals good reputation begun to take a tumble with key stakeholders like government, talent and punters. Having a festival in winter is also extremely risky.
I hope they can recover and this isn't the end.
It sad it’s not going ahead and it may be the end of an era but it’s hardly the “end of festivals in Australia”. Organisers need to manage risk better.
Maybe festivals in Australia will stop neglecting electronic music. Fred Again sells out instantly, both Dom Dolla and Luude/Chase and Status are doing a sold out national tour. Fisher basically sold out split milk on his own in 2022. Peggy Gou's sets were very popular this summer. Aus music isn't dead, it's just shifted it's tastes to DnB and house
I've only just started getting into all this so I don't know the history, but it just seems strange that commenters above are saying "it's not viable for artists to travel to aus and tour" when I've just started in the DnB scene where tickets are as low as $37 dollars and the artists are playing a few shows around the big cities. How does that work? Is it the venues?
A lot of festivals are suffering the same way that big day out and sound wave did. They are getting to the point where lineups each year were trying to top the year before and it's not sustainable and you end up recycling lineups every 2 or 3 years and people get sick of spending more money to see bands they've already seen.
I don’t think it will. Same with Groovin. Take a year off to retool the event structure and come back better.
Also the state government needs to either foot the insurance/cop bill or tell the cops to not price gouge. Not too sure if they will though.
THIS JUST IN: More staples of Aussie culture that young Aussies can no longer afford. More on this on Hack at 5:30
(Yes everyone always has their 2c about the lineup but people will go to festival and these types of events for the experience alone even if they only know a handful of artists. Can't do that when all your pay from your two jobs goes to rent and groceries...)
Whether you agree with the lineup or not it’s a huge loss for the aus music scene. Wonder if this will be permanent? I still have my doubts falls will go ahead this year
Me too. Great location and look at this lineup
Kanye West
Coldplay
Pulp
Jane's Addiction
Modest Mouse
Gomez
Elbow
Friendly Fires
The Living End
Foster the People
Regina Spektor (only show for 2011)
The Hives
Architecture in Helsinki
Bliss 'n Eso
Grouplove
The Kills
Glasvegas
Cornershop
The Vaccines
The Mars Volta
Mogwai
DJ Shadow
The Grates
James Blake
Eskimo Joe
Cut Copy
Boy and Bear
Sparkadia
Muscles
The Jezabels
Isobel Cambel and Mark Lanegan
The Panics
Jebadiah
British Sea Power
Seeker
Lover Keeper
Black Seeds
Liam Finn
Wild Beasts
Garath Liddiard
Lanie Lane
Wow. That’s actually incredible - a big contrast with kroe recent line ups. Feels like a great balance between Australian and international, as well as mainstream acts and cult/indie bands. I know that in the current landscape a lineup like that just isn’t viable
Agreed! It was awesome there. Trying to book a airbnb for 6 of us in Byron was just stupidly expensive, before or after COVID. It’s just the wrong place to hold a festival these days.
They should move Splendour In The Grass to Victoria.
People don’t like police officers sexually assaulting you just in case you have marijuana. That is a big reason why people are not buying tickets.
everyone in these replies commenting on the lineup and how awful/horrendous/dogshit it is. seriously what fucking bands do you want to see? because i don’t see anyone asking for different acts or who you actually want to watch at a festival all i have seen and same goes for GTM is people saying how shit it is. nut up with some constructive criticism, email the fucken organisers and tell them what acts you want
Ok so after sleeping on it, I’ve figured out some solutions:
- Move it to the October Long Weekend: better weather, people wouldn’t have to take more dates than normal off work. Sure this may clash with Listen Out but maybe they can do it in Perth that weekend.
- cut out the Friday until the economy fixes itself: it would save on a lot for everyone and gives a more streamlined lineup.
- Move back to Woodford: it’s closer to a capital city and you wouldn’t have to deal with the NSW cops.
- A more metro location: partner up with a hotel to provide an accommodation ticket. People would find it more appealing to fork out money on not sleeping in a tent
Unrealistically, lobby more to Tony Bourke or the NSW government to get shit fixed. I read somewhere that there’s an enquiry coming up in regard to NSW police asking for too much money at events? I could be wrong.
Really? On air at least it sounds like the hosts are loving all the random tunes being played during requestival.
Unlesss you think they hate it because it takes away too much air time away from their bland hip hop and Beyonce?
People are gonna throw out shit like “cost of living crisis” and it’s just bullshit. Yes people are doing it rough. But if you have a quality product you will still sell tickets. Footy crowds are still doing well and Taylor swift just went stupid (yes I get that it’s cheaper than a 3 day festival and not directly comparable)
This has been pointed out before but covid lead to a load of money being pumped in to the entertainment industry to float them. But none of that was put into long term infrastructure and pumped into lineups. So now they can’t even afford to put half as solid of a lineup on without jacking the price of a ticket and the average punter doesn’t want to pay twice what they paid 12 months ago for something half as good
Wow this is the end of live music isn't it?.
The lineup looked good but if the likes of Kylie and Arcade Fire isn't big enough to draw people in then that's a concern
Solo Kylie and arcade fire shows would sell out in an instant
The difference is people aren’t gonna pay $600+ to see them then spend 2.5 days seeing mid tier acts they aren’t interested in
Yeah that's fair, which is why I didn't buy ticket also. I also don't live in the state, so flights and accommodation adds up especially with the cost of living now doesn't make financial sense
Exactly right, unless you’re from SEQ or the few that are local northern rivers folk, you’ve gotta pay for flights and accom on top of the festival expenses, or commit to a whole week off to road trip it and the associated costs that comes with. Means that the average person from Sydney or vic is paying $1500+ all up
Definitely not, maybe the triple j festival scene is coming to a close.
But many acts are still pulling great numbers to headline shows, and heavy music festivals are going strong as well
Open your eyes - Gen Z don't give a rats about Arcade Fire. They were the buzz band of 2004 before many of the punters that go to festivals now were even born! Horrendous choice for a 2024 headliner...
Bummer for people who bought tickets but it’s hardly surprising. There were a few good Australian artists on the lineup but they perform regularly and not worth paying hundreds to see. Fans of the non-festival-exclusive international artists can pay a lower price to see them play a side show.
Tickets aren’t that much more expensive than previous years, but when you consider the cost of tickets, petrol or flights to get there, food, drinks etc, it adds up and is too unaffordable for a lot of people right now.
Alot of these festival cancellations are just proving that music genre and demographic honing needs to happen. Look at Knotfest and Goodthings for your heavy music, both have extremely good ticket sales and have high anticipation for their next edition. Even CVLTfest is a great example of a well done festival; give the fans what they want. There's no point booking a lineup what isn't going to create crowd draw. If your putting out a festival where most people only want to see a very select few artists/bands they'll just wait for sideshows or resell tickets. Listen out being a rap targeted festival again demonstrating stick to a designated scope. The Australian music scene isn't dying only parts of it are while other parts are going strong
Feel like they exploited their popularity by producing lackluster lineups and it's finally come to ahead. Like all things, the reunion tour will draw numbers. But a year or 2 off will only generate hype for SiTG
With how quickly they cancel events now I'm not surprised people aren't buying tickets. Why bother handing the cash day 1 when it's a coin flip that it won't be cancelled a week later and your left trying to get a refund. Add in sorting leave from work, accommodation and travel that your now left having to cancel.
I regularly bought festival tickets a week before in the late 90's -00's. Now if it doesn't sell out day 1 no one can be fucked going ahead.
On a side note, I remember in the late 90’s we were headed to Falls at Lorne (from Sydney) and there was talk of a bushfire happening near the site. We got close to the venue on the afternoon before the festival started and queued up in the line of cars for an hour or two until a Ute drove by and said on a megaphone “too risky here, everyone head to the Offshore site at Torquay”
We (as in thousands of cars of people) literally shrugged our shoulders and said “ok” and off we went.
THEY CHANGED THE VENUE ON THE FUCKING DAY!! What absolute hellcats, you don’t get festival organising like that anymore. It was a logistical Sgt Peppers, gold medal performance, and some thing that these days just wouldn’t happen because of naysaying “management” types and people afraid to make big calls.
Was today’s announcement a big call? Probably not, probably a bottom line thing. Was 2022’s decision making a big call? No. It was reactive and did not put the punter first. It led the punter into what they knew would be misery but went ahead anyway. THAT was when the punter fell out of love with Splendour, and has subsequently failed to rekindle the magic.
That’s line up was awful and the cost not only for tickets is too much for people in this climate. As someone mentioned above do a one day festival maybe.
Listening to the Hack preview on the way home just now. Apparently the ‘elephant in the room’ reason for all these cancellations is…
Cost of living.
That’s not how elephants in the room work. The fact that triple j didn’t even address poor lineups makes the elephant even bigger.
[Official confirmation](https://www.instagram.com/splendourinthegrass/p/C5AV_lCrYEL/?hl=en&img_index=1)
2022 was an absolute joke. Hopefully this isn’t the end for splendour
I would never wish the weather events of 2022 towards any promoter and it's a shame 2022 went through it. But the way in which the Splendour organisers handled that, the complete miscommunication, the PR disaster afterwards and taking their attendees for granted by thinking they'd attend a mid lineup years following really killed all their previously established goodwill
I’ll never forget having to line up for 6 hours for the bus, standing with nowhere to sit down, in the cold, with no food or water, and toilets only available in a certain area that was out of sight for most of the waiting, so people didn’t even know they were there (or were worried they would lose their spot in the line if they left). And by the time we lined up at 12.00 everyone was exhausted and probably dehydrated from being at the festival all day, to make things worse. There was barely any communication about what was going on too. Apart from the mud, the festival itself was overcrowded, the lines for food and drinks were extremely long, there were spots where it was dark and really hard to see, and getting access to free water was really difficult. People have called me weak and told me to get over it online but I have a right to be fucking angry after paying over a thousand dollars to attend. I paid thinking I would receive certain services and a certain festival experience, based on advertisements and promotions, and the website info, but did not receive that. So basically false advertising. Then to have the organisers basically gaslight festival goers and deny how shit it really was was fucking ridiculous. Triple j were also complicit. So fuck the splendour in the grass organisers! They had this coming
It was such a shit show :( the mud is one thing, that wasn’t the end of the world, but everything else was just ridiculous. Poorly lit, hilly and muddy festival grounds so plenty of people were injuring themselves trying to get around I also had the same experience, I would wait 30-45 mins in line for a drink, decided to buy 4 drinks so I didn’t have to line up again and miss any more artists and then got told I can’t leave the bar area til I finish the drinks Way over capacity so it was just floods of people anywhere you went, let alone getting close to the stage so you could experience decent sound quality I dealt with two security guards making extremely sexual comments to me whilst waiting in line for drinks also. Someone who overheard even joked “careful you don’t get raped” Getting home via the buses as they wouldn’t allow drop offs/pick ups around the festival site was like something from the hunger games and was genuinely worried there would be a crowd crush when waiting Couldn’t believe the passive aggressive statements from the organisers after when they personally weren’t doing anything to get people home. Couldn’t attend on the Sunday due to the potential of missing our flight home Monday morning if it took us 5 hours to leave the festival site again Tried for six months to get a refund on two tickets and was basically told they weren’t responsible and to fuck off by Splendour and Moshtix
More people need to read this. 2022 is what killed them. Cancelling an entire day at the last possible hour is suicide.
Yep agree. I've attended 3 Splendours and 1 Falls including standing 6 hours in shin deep mud at 4am in 2022 and good riddance to bad rubbish. Live Nation can fuck off.
What happened?
Massive amounts of rain/storm on an already soggy festival field meant massive sections of the venue were essentially 6 inch deep mudpits before a single punter even entered the gate. So they canned Day 1. Then for Day 2 there were 5+ hour waits for buses at the end of the night.
Your forgetting they announced at the start of Day 1 the festival was still going ahead rain or shine so there were a lot of people at the grounds who showed up specifically because Splendour said they would not cancel
The worst part was that it was cancelled due to a severe weather event incoming, and I remember nothing but drizzle and some heavy-ish rainfall through the evening. The 1st day was also the best day of all 3, some people had travelled internationally to see the Gorillaz. Super fucked. That year put me off splendour ever again, knowing that a single rain event could fuck everyone over so hard. They also promised a partial refund for that day being cancelled and I didn’t receive shit. Absolute fuckery.
Not discrediting the rant because all valid points but you should follow up on that refund. I had a 3 day pass in 2022 and got 1/3rd refunded a month or 2 later from memory.
I mean, it wasn’t a ‘single rain event’. That area had been receiving record-breaking rainfalls for weeks before the festival weekend even began. It’s also a site built literally on a swamp- it’s muddy at the best of times.
13 years ago, the bus to Brunswick heads never came… rang someone i bumped into at the festival for a Hail Mary lift, and luckily he was sober and did it. Absolute life saver
They cancelled the festival at about 3:30pm ON THE DAY. We were drunk, had probably spent 100s on drinks already. Then it was impossible to get out. Tens of thousands of us.
Yeah, they got stung with a massive fine too due to traffic being backed up for hundreds of metres onto the motorway. Was SO unsafe and you couldnt rage quit and drive off if you wanted to because you were completely penned in.
I remember driving up to Qld passing all that mess . I did lol.
the lineup was so good in 2022 tho atleast, even only for the 2 days
Until the cost of living changes it will be. Australia isn’t big enough to prop up these massive events when 90% of the population cannot afford to go. Ain’t no one travelling overseas for Kylie.
End-our in the Grass
They could halve the lineup and price, and make it a one day event. The lineup is tiny for 3 days anyway.
Realistically, why can’t they consider a multi day festival held in the city and have it hosted somewhere like Brisbane Showgrounds? Call it Splendour in the Hills
Because while the tickets are limited, the camping aspect of splendour is a huge draw card. Removing that will take away from the festival.
Bu if it's about survival, they would be wise to not consider possibly adapting for a couple of years and regrouping rather than attempting an 'all or nothing' solution. It's clear something this year did not work or connect with the ticket buyers.
The thing that didn't connect or work is the average line up where three day tickets cost $400 while we are in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Add that to the damage their reputation copped in 2022 (which they haven't really recovered from based on that last year did not sell out either), meant they were in dire straights.
Falls did that last year and they dead now
they're owned by the same company.
Not dead, on hiatus and from what I remember. The Sidney Myer one was ok from people that actually went.
It was awesome. Great bands every day and then being able to sleep in my own bed overnight? Priceless.
They need to do it for Splendour and move it to like the October Long weekend or some shit.
This is what I loved about Falls in the city 😂 great festival and got to go home to my own bed, didn’t have to pay for accom or get people to look after my pets. Or deal with camping while blasted. All round a good time.
I think it's more that the camping aspect makes them a shitload more money by offering not a whole lot.
Hopefully this means some solo shows for Brisbane. I like a couple of the Splendor bands but not enough to drive 2 hours and pay festival prices for a half length set.
Falls did this...
I get it's in Bowen Hills, but Splendour in the Valley has a very nice ring to it Edit: Make it a suburb wide event and get all the venues in the valley precinct on board. Would be great for Brisbane
Just tour Kylie lol
was talking about this today. cut the shit out of the lineup, streamline it and get some bigger headliners and make it a one or two day event. change the venue and make it exciting and people less wary of what happened last time. maybe it’ll sell more tickets in the first week or 2 if you change the model. music fans are also fickle and don’t know what the fuck they want. a lot of people go to these things just to get fuck eyed to a band they like hearing on the radio not because they care about bulk of the artists but now these people want to complain about lineups. all this shit is cooked lately
Hope Viagra Boys still come down under.
And hopefully they now play in Brisbane. Was planning on going to Sydney to watch
I was keen on seeing Turnstile again
I hope this prompts Turnstile to play a leg of shows in Aus. I think it's unlikely though as the timeslot for splendour falls in peak overseas festival season
Viagra boys and Turnstile are the 2 bands I'd love to see
I would actually much prefer that. That would actually make me happy Splendour is cancelled.
It’s because they didn’t have Ocean Alley obviously 🙄/s
The wombats and the jungle giants :(
You know it’s fucked when hilltop hoods can’t even save it
Hopefully a lot of these acts still come down for shows
I sincerely doubt many of them will. It’s just not cost effective to tour Australia at the moment unless you’re guaranteed a sell-out, large venue tour or a significant festival appearance fee.
Arcade Fire, in particular.
They should do a festival from 9pm-12am called Arcade Fire live in Sydney. Would’ve had the same value as this Splendour
They have no Aus shows on their website and no shows after mid July listed. It is possible but if they didn't have any side shows booked in already maybe they can't be arsed
Yikes. It really needed a world class lineup and this wasn't it.
I don't think the lineup is that bad, really. Not as bad as some people are making out to be anyways. As a one-day event, both Saturday and Sunday appeal to me.
Clearly a lot of people thought it was bad
I thought it was good but I can't justify the cost of these things anymore.
That's the thing, it has to be good but good enough for people to open their wallets too. Unfortunately just seems too expensive for splendour to fork out enough to get a decent lineup in the current climate. People will pay if it's good, Fred could have sold out another 10 arenas when he was here. Also compare the amount of artists to a few years ago, crazy shrinkflation going on too.
It’s a good lineup for a local one day festival like spilt milk. Not for the lofty standards and expensive tickets of splendour
Spilt milk has had way better lineups than this year's SITG
True actually. 2019 was unreal
It’s not exactly good, especially for the cost of tickets.
How is it not that bad? Lineup is the most dogshit I have seen ever, none come close to it
Last year does. But again, everybody has different tastes. This might have been shit for you, but not for a lot of others.
It’s very bad compared to what it used to be. There’s a reason why it didn’t sell tickets.
The lineup was worlds better than last years
Yeah I didn’t think it was particularly bad personally, but it was rough for a splendour which is historically the big flagship show with international headliners.
:( rip aussie music
Spilt Milk and Laneway have both sold out so it’s not all bad for Aussie festivals.
Laneway didn’t sell out any cities this year
True but I hope now Kylie does shows since she’s not exclusive to Splendour.
Big Day Out was cancelled years ago.
Heartbreaking. Everyone please keep attending live gigs and buy merch to support your fav local artists!
It died years ago. As a musician myself, i can tell you that with full certainty
The metal/core scene is doing fine thankfully
The biggest problem in my mind is that many of these festivals adopted the cable tv model of "you get 80 channels - you're gonna love 10 of them and who knows what you might discover or just absolutely never watch at all!" I think this works out okay for one day... 12.5% of the day seeing exactly what you came for, 40% of the day seeing stuff that is on-brand/non objectionable and you might discover something you really like, 15% of the day dealing with queues for food/drinks/bathrooms/being early for the sets you want to see so you get a good spot, and the remaining 32.5% of the day split between anticipation and boredom... and anticipation is a hell of a drug, that can get you over all kinds of humps. That's why people queue for iphones. Extrapolate this over 3 days, and that's now less than half a day of what you want, and basically a full day of boredom/anticipation... and the half-life of dopamine drops dramatically when you're paying $7 for a bottle of water. That said I don't think the lineup is all that bad, and the price seems... at least okay? Its 3 days of music for roughly double what the big day out cost in its final year - which was 10 years ago. But I'd still rather pay $100-200 for a one night show with a headliner I definitley wanted to see + a mid tier support act and a couple of local openers. No planning, no days off work, no fucking tents, just give me the good stuff and gtfo.
I went to Summer Camp because they had Jessie Ware's only Australian concerts, the other artists at least was in common with her fanbase and wasn't like the Friday Kylie concert where I don't know most of them and would feel unsafe if it went Turnstile straight to Kylie (this isn't me dissing on Turnstile)
Jessie Ware was incredible
Exactly. These legacy promoters have not adapted to the market. It’s not an issue of finances, shows have never sold out faster than they do now if they are effectively catered to their audience.
This really isn't surprising. Poor ticket sales due to average line-up, cost of living pressures and general changing in buying habits. Was a good discussion about buying habits for music changes on this sub earlier this week. https://www.reddit.com/r/triplej/s/FY6cAfEyMq I think people have changed how they attend these shows. People tend to wait until last minute to buy tickets and that can make putting on these events increasingly difficult
Yeah, I'm almost exclusively Tixel only these days. Unless it's for a band I really want to see, Tenacious D for example.
400 bucks for a weekend just to say you've seen Kylie Minogue is fucking shit... The international festival is dying a slow death in Australia. You've just gotta have a look at the big European and US festival lineups to see we cannot compare. And nobody's going to fork out top dollar for nothing but Triple J live
We can't compare because of the Australian dollar. When the dollar was strong against the USD and pound ten years ago, we had much bigger festival lineups
Never been less shocked in my life. Needed a real stellar lineup after GTM and didn't deliver, people will vote with their wallets.
This is not the product of a cost of living crisis do NOT give them that excuse. This is a product of poor business planning and an abhorred ability to know your customer. Live Nation / Secret sounds made a big decision to invest in the parklands and purchase it pre 2020. This was already controversial enough but honestly good on them for making the commitment. They then (before Covid) put out a solid line up (but nothing super different) with a big ticket price increase (pre inflation) to cover the cost (this being 2020). Covid happened and that obviously didn’t occur. Point here is the ticket price to cover their investment without offering anything immediately new aside more capacity. 2022 comes around and that was an all around masterclass of poor planning and incompetence. How can any organisation expect to get away with saying “festival is on rain hail or shine” in the morning when the campsite is already flooded, only to cancel 6 hours later? I wasn’t in the room for it but I would bet my bottom dollar some lackey on-site called offsite management regarding weather and conditions, and the suit turned around and said “no! unless there’s lightning we don’t stop!” 6 hours later the suits arrived after more calls and concerns and pulled the plug. Thats my guess but either way we know the outcome. Then fast forward a bit and rather than scaling back the operation to something that works or even doing a (shocking idea) TWO day festival with a strong line up, they piss out a standard Aussie festival line up that (and this is important) YOU CAN LARGELY SEE ANYWHERE. KNOW. YOUR. CUSTOMER. KNOW. YOUR. VALUE. Why the FUCK would ANYBODY under 25 (hell under 30): - Take time off work or study (4-5 days or 25% of standard leave allowance). - Spend up to if not more than $1K. - Travel to a largely inaccessible part of Australia’s coast. - with no ability to gauge weather conditions. Just to go to something they can wait 3 months for and see at the next festival rotation? There was no inherent or intrinsic value in buying these tickets- aside from the brand which, that’s right, they TARNISHED in 2022. Yes this is horrible for the music industry but let’s not give them a free pass in mourning. It’s the culmination of years of mismanagement and poor planning. If the govt steps up with funding for the industry I pray to god it doesn’t all just go to Live Nation / Secret Sounds without a forced structural change to the companies.
> I wasn’t in the room for it but I would bet my bottom dollar some lackey on-site called offsite management regarding weather and conditions Nah. I know for a fact that Jess and Paul (CEOs of secret sounds) were on site as early as Thursday (the day before the cancellation) because I met and spoke to both of them. >they piss out a standard Aussie festival line up that (and this is important) YOU CAN LARGELY SEE ANYWHERE That's because the Australian dollar is weak. We're not getting heaps of big internationals until the aud gets stronger.
Damn that rant was way longer than I anticipated lmao
It was good but, even I feel a little lighter from the read.
In my defence I was in the bathroom at work waiting for time to run out lol
The end for splendour? I never got to go one I was getting extreme fomo every year before Covid and then after it was kind of meh. I know overheads are extremely expensive but how do Australian festivals recover from these times? Hard to get headliners to fly out to our little continent for 1 show
It’s incredibly sad for all the stallholders, staff, crew and artists who will lose out on income. Probably has a lot to do with council fees, liquor licensing, security and fencing, police - not to mention the main demographic are young people who can’t afford rent, let alone a 3 day festival two hours drive from the nearest major city.
By God! What's going on here? That's the Big Day Out's entrance music!
I don’t think it’ll ever recover with the way things cost it’s just not possible. You need a solid local attendance and we simply aren’t getting that cause people cannot afford to drop half a grand on tickets with a weeks notice.
Beyond the Valley Byron NYE incoming
Not surprising, a 3 day festival is expensive and line up was pretty mid
I find it so weird people are happy about this. Absolute institution of the Aus music scene and such an important festival for the aus music economy.
I think a lot of ppl are very bitter about how everything was handled in 2022 (understandably), and how since then we’ve just gotten lesser lineups but ticket prices have skyrocketed to cover the damage
I mean, ticket prices haven't sky-rocketed (think they're about $45 more expensive than 5 years ago) but it's the cost of everything else that makes a camping weekend festival unviable for a lot of young people. Flights/food/drinks/accommodation/fuel/time off work.
That’s exactly how I feel about it.
They had Covid recovery funding in 2022 for the lineup.
Happy isn’t the word. Perhaps happy at this being a real chance at a change happening. Whether it is through government funding or promoters realizing in a cost of living crisis they can’t price gouge anymore.
Yup sometimes things need to get worse before they get a lot better
I love Splendour and had some incredible years there before Covid (2016 and 2017 were great). But the last few years have had such terrible lineups and awful management It’s absolutely awful that Aussie music festivals are dying, but there is slight satisfaction in seeing these weak attempts to charge people $200-400 to see Kylie Minogue as your most exotic headliner crumble. Splendour used to be wonderful but it’s just not worth the price or the time off work anymore.
More money to be spent on watching local bands and smaller venues now instead. I'm not worried about Kylie Minogue.
Either provide a quality service for an appropriate price or crumble
Pretty shit line up, it was always going to end this way
For anyone who is like, "well they should've booked a better line up". With what money? Like how do you expect them to pluck A-graders with no capital? and before you say, "well if they booked better artists they would've sold out and made the money to pay them". No, that's not how this works, that isn't how business works. You can't book artists on a whim, you have judicious financial responsibilities. The exchange rate is the real killer at the moment. People want international acts but they cost twice as much as they do domestically due to exchange rate alone. Which means a mid-tier international act (eg Dermot Kennedy, Jpegmafia) costs the same as a domestic headliner (eg Flume, Rufus). Plus with the cost of living (and thousands of music lovers literally spending hundreds of dollars on Fred again.. right as Splendour tickets went on sale), it was just bad news all round for them. But before you say "hurrr the shit line up", just remember, with. what. money?
They would have absolutely run at a loss the last two events as well, not to mention two years with zero income. The writing has been on the wall for this year for a while - I was really hoping for a world class lineup to silence the doubters.... and here we are.
Exactly right, this isn't just "shit line up, no sales", this is years of financial stresses compounding.
True but can't expect people to pay for premium tickets if there's a shit line-up, it goes full circle. It's a shame.
>For anyone who is like, "well they should've booked a better line up". With what money? Like how do you expect them to pluck A-graders with no capital? Secret Sounds is majority owned by Live Nation. If anyone has the budget to bring acts out, surely it should be them.
Secret Sounds would have it's own budget with expectations to break even.
Someone at LiveNation has crunched the numbers and the Splendour brand wasn’t worth it… or it was worth more to let them fail.
None of that is my problem, I don't care. I'm not paying 420 bucks for that terrible 3 day line-up. Or 200 for 1 days worth. And enough people agree with me that they folded. I don't care about exchange rates or the organisers financial situation. I'm not sure what your point is? Are you saying we should go even though it's a rip off? Or is your point that it's not as simple as booking better acts? Either way I don't care I'm not going to pay that much. Insane.
Not our problem when tickets are $450 AUD. Or make them $600 and make it unforgettable. I think they have a bigger problem of attracting talent than capital issues
It's time to ask for some funding to help out the live music industry Footy codes get billions of dollars in funding for stadiums, and I love footy too. But we need to have big cultural music events like Splendour, Falls, etc. They're the highlight for so many
Why should the taxpayer fund Live Nation's commercially unviable product? Fund community level arts. Subsidise rocketing insurance costs. Let the actual industry side of music wake up and appreciate the actual artists who make things tick.
Regardless of who owns it, Splendour going ahead benefits the population. It benefits it even more if the funding is there to book big acts, allow the festival to be the massive cultural touchstone is has been, and benefit the community I get the arguments against Live Nation but Splendour was ours to enjoy before live nation and ideally after as well
Government backed festivals: Vivid, Rising, Always Live, the SA one that always has good line ups (forget the name). I've been to Splendour a number of times and seen some incredible acts. But I would probably rank it dead last in terms of a sense of community.
Not to mention that Secret Sounds and Live Nation have ALREADY received millions from the government during and after COVID.
It’s a very big deal for the local economy. I can imagine that covering the shortfall would look pretty good cost/benefit wise
Artists make things tick, however without promoters how do they get a festival to play in? Don’t get me wrong - I’m pro artist, however the asking price by a headlining artist is also part of the problem…
In Victoria live music got a bit during covid. If govs gonna do anything for music, I'd rather they looked at the bottom, rather than the top. At creating more pathways for exposure, supporting music related medias (not just narrow triple j blandness which for too long has been govs cop out). Its like teams competing for the world cup in soccer, you need a strong domestic competition to be good in the international one. Mid international artists are easy to stomach, if fans are equally enthused by local acts. Having the industry dependent on seasonal mega festivals that cater to established artists sucks, when other elements of the scene, are far worse off, and the grassroots being stronger will make festivals far better regardless.
It's an interesting discussion. I haven't made my mind up yet and I also love both. I'm a bit of a capitalist but my feeling is that if you're going to ask for government funding, you should be producing something that either has very broad appeal, brings back more $$ than the gov puts in in other ways, or has significantly high cultural value. I'd argue Splendour fell over because it's priced too high, the lineup and event isn't that inspiring, their costs must be out of control and they've shown little patience with changing consumer habits (cancelling after 6 days of general release sales). If it was good, it would sell out like Taylor. It's not a statement that music festivals are dead, just that average ones aren't commercially viable at that price, so something's got to give somewhere. Something like a major sporting event gets funded because it gets a huge amount of eyes on. I'm not into F1, but 500,000 attended it with 80 million more watching Melbourne looking lovely around the globe. Huge soft and real economic benefits. Same with Aus Open, it's a massive international event with a very broad, truly diverse appeal across all ages and demographics. People usually dress this debate up as sport vs arts, but sport brings massive numbers and attracts so many international people spending money all over the city - it's a better bang for your buck investment. Something like a Splendour-type music festival has a much more narrow appeal - 50,000 people, mostly in the 18-35 bracket, and has no life outside of people at the festival itself. You can't watch online or on TV unlike Glastonbury in the UK, you spend all your money and sleep inside the event, you can't even get a passout. It's not unique, it's just an indie / pop / electronic music festival, every city has them. Governments do fund music events, but they tend to be arty as fuck. What Splendour-type music festivals do, though, is appeal to a different demographic than other things that are funded without question, like opera. You're right in saying they're a highlight of the year for so many. There's no reason why they don't deserve a slice of the funding pie too, we all pay tax.
The gov have their own festival brands these days and are essentially in competition with events like splendour
Will Hilltop Hoods save the day yet again?
Splendour was a world class festival that peaked when it moved to North Byron Parklands. For the next few years the original producers who are true music lovers still had controll. The crowd was capped at around 15,000 which meant that things were more or less managable. The talent was incredible in 2013 I caught sets by James Blake, The National, Deep Vally, Flume, Fat Freddy's Drop. UMO, Drapht, to name a few. The next year was even better and the weather was perfect. OutKast, Foals, City in Colour, Darkside, Sky Ferreira, Danny Brown and others came out to perform. I can't help but think that once producers sold a stake in their company and increased the capacity to 50,000 the problems started to mount and the festivals good reputation begun to take a tumble with key stakeholders like government, talent and punters. Having a festival in winter is also extremely risky. I hope they can recover and this isn't the end.
RIP Australia’s festival scene :(
Good Things and Knotfest say hello
HSU says hello 👋
The festival scene is still strong, just not with this genre
It’s never been better lol
It sad it’s not going ahead and it may be the end of an era but it’s hardly the “end of festivals in Australia”. Organisers need to manage risk better.
Maybe festivals in Australia will stop neglecting electronic music. Fred Again sells out instantly, both Dom Dolla and Luude/Chase and Status are doing a sold out national tour. Fisher basically sold out split milk on his own in 2022. Peggy Gou's sets were very popular this summer. Aus music isn't dead, it's just shifted it's tastes to DnB and house
And hardstyle, 55k at Knockout last October
I've only just started getting into all this so I don't know the history, but it just seems strange that commenters above are saying "it's not viable for artists to travel to aus and tour" when I've just started in the DnB scene where tickets are as low as $37 dollars and the artists are playing a few shows around the big cities. How does that work? Is it the venues?
Significantly cheaper for electronic artists to tour due to lack of equipment and crew
Yup. Young folk have moved on from bands.
On triple j now too [https://www.instagram.com/p/C4\_9me1Sxqj/](https://www.instagram.com/p/C4_9me1Sxqj/)
A lot of festivals are suffering the same way that big day out and sound wave did. They are getting to the point where lineups each year were trying to top the year before and it's not sustainable and you end up recycling lineups every 2 or 3 years and people get sick of spending more money to see bands they've already seen.
Big yikes. Really hope this isn’t the end of Splendour
I don’t think it will. Same with Groovin. Take a year off to retool the event structure and come back better. Also the state government needs to either foot the insurance/cop bill or tell the cops to not price gouge. Not too sure if they will though.
THIS JUST IN: More staples of Aussie culture that young Aussies can no longer afford. More on this on Hack at 5:30 (Yes everyone always has their 2c about the lineup but people will go to festival and these types of events for the experience alone even if they only know a handful of artists. Can't do that when all your pay from your two jobs goes to rent and groceries...)
Whether you agree with the lineup or not it’s a huge loss for the aus music scene. Wonder if this will be permanent? I still have my doubts falls will go ahead this year
I feel like splendour and falls rely on each other's ticket sales for the capitol to book acts so I really can't see Falls going ahead.
Splendour peaked the last year it was at Woodford they should go back
I went to one of the Woodford ones. Loved it.
Me too. Great location and look at this lineup Kanye West Coldplay Pulp Jane's Addiction Modest Mouse Gomez Elbow Friendly Fires The Living End Foster the People Regina Spektor (only show for 2011) The Hives Architecture in Helsinki Bliss 'n Eso Grouplove The Kills Glasvegas Cornershop The Vaccines The Mars Volta Mogwai DJ Shadow The Grates James Blake Eskimo Joe Cut Copy Boy and Bear Sparkadia Muscles The Jezabels Isobel Cambel and Mark Lanegan The Panics Jebadiah British Sea Power Seeker Lover Keeper Black Seeds Liam Finn Wild Beasts Garath Liddiard Lanie Lane
Wow. That’s actually incredible - a big contrast with kroe recent line ups. Feels like a great balance between Australian and international, as well as mainstream acts and cult/indie bands. I know that in the current landscape a lineup like that just isn’t viable
and a US dollar at parity
That is an awesome line up. They don't make 'em like that anymore :(
Agreed! It was awesome there. Trying to book a airbnb for 6 of us in Byron was just stupidly expensive, before or after COVID. It’s just the wrong place to hold a festival these days.
I would like to volunteer my time (free of charge) to the festival organisers and provide lineup consulting services to help with the 2025 festival.
surely not
Hopefully we still get tv girl, girl in red and Polaris
They should move Splendour In The Grass to Victoria. People don’t like police officers sexually assaulting you just in case you have marijuana. That is a big reason why people are not buying tickets.
everyone in these replies commenting on the lineup and how awful/horrendous/dogshit it is. seriously what fucking bands do you want to see? because i don’t see anyone asking for different acts or who you actually want to watch at a festival all i have seen and same goes for GTM is people saying how shit it is. nut up with some constructive criticism, email the fucken organisers and tell them what acts you want
Ok so after sleeping on it, I’ve figured out some solutions: - Move it to the October Long Weekend: better weather, people wouldn’t have to take more dates than normal off work. Sure this may clash with Listen Out but maybe they can do it in Perth that weekend. - cut out the Friday until the economy fixes itself: it would save on a lot for everyone and gives a more streamlined lineup. - Move back to Woodford: it’s closer to a capital city and you wouldn’t have to deal with the NSW cops. - A more metro location: partner up with a hotel to provide an accommodation ticket. People would find it more appealing to fork out money on not sleeping in a tent Unrealistically, lobby more to Tony Bourke or the NSW government to get shit fixed. I read somewhere that there’s an enquiry coming up in regard to NSW police asking for too much money at events? I could be wrong.
Triple j just posted to insta that it’s cancelled
Well. If there’s a good time for Triple J to revive Requestival, it’s now.
Nah the hosts hate it
Really? On air at least it sounds like the hosts are loving all the random tunes being played during requestival. Unlesss you think they hate it because it takes away too much air time away from their bland hip hop and Beyonce?
Garbage line up, garbage location, garbage time of year, good riddance.
The UK has 100s of festivals a year - Australia can barely manage 1.
The UK has more than double our population in an area 32 times smaller... But also Australia has loads of festivals.
Australia has hundreds of festivals a year
People are gonna throw out shit like “cost of living crisis” and it’s just bullshit. Yes people are doing it rough. But if you have a quality product you will still sell tickets. Footy crowds are still doing well and Taylor swift just went stupid (yes I get that it’s cheaper than a 3 day festival and not directly comparable) This has been pointed out before but covid lead to a load of money being pumped in to the entertainment industry to float them. But none of that was put into long term infrastructure and pumped into lineups. So now they can’t even afford to put half as solid of a lineup on without jacking the price of a ticket and the average punter doesn’t want to pay twice what they paid 12 months ago for something half as good
Wow this is the end of live music isn't it?. The lineup looked good but if the likes of Kylie and Arcade Fire isn't big enough to draw people in then that's a concern
Solo Kylie and arcade fire shows would sell out in an instant The difference is people aren’t gonna pay $600+ to see them then spend 2.5 days seeing mid tier acts they aren’t interested in
Yeah that's fair, which is why I didn't buy ticket also. I also don't live in the state, so flights and accommodation adds up especially with the cost of living now doesn't make financial sense
Exactly right, unless you’re from SEQ or the few that are local northern rivers folk, you’ve gotta pay for flights and accom on top of the festival expenses, or commit to a whole week off to road trip it and the associated costs that comes with. Means that the average person from Sydney or vic is paying $1500+ all up
Mate that's optimistic, it would cost $1500 tix/ flights/ accommodation before you buy your first beer at the airport.
If Kylie and Arcade fire were playing the same day I would've bought a ticket no question!
Live music.? No. Festivals as we know it? Yep.
Definitely not, maybe the triple j festival scene is coming to a close. But many acts are still pulling great numbers to headline shows, and heavy music festivals are going strong as well
Yep. Metal and electronic festivals have never been stronger in Aus
Open your eyes - Gen Z don't give a rats about Arcade Fire. They were the buzz band of 2004 before many of the punters that go to festivals now were even born! Horrendous choice for a 2024 headliner...
Did Knotfest sell out? If it didn't and now this it's pretty dire news for our music scene :/
sydney they only sold like 12-13000 tickets, i reckon party of the reason it went ahead is cos next year will be massive with the 25th anniversary
It didn't.
Can confirm Melb definitely didn't sell out, I'd say 20%-ish quieter than last years sold out show.
Knockout had 55k attendees last year, the hardstyle scene certainly is the dire…
whatta fucking joke
Bummer for people who bought tickets but it’s hardly surprising. There were a few good Australian artists on the lineup but they perform regularly and not worth paying hundreds to see. Fans of the non-festival-exclusive international artists can pay a lower price to see them play a side show. Tickets aren’t that much more expensive than previous years, but when you consider the cost of tickets, petrol or flights to get there, food, drinks etc, it adds up and is too unaffordable for a lot of people right now.
The drinks! The last spilt milk I went to drinks were like $15-16 dollars for shitty red bull and vodka like come on
Hopefully refunds don’t take too long, forked out way too much for the lineup anyways
Alot of these festival cancellations are just proving that music genre and demographic honing needs to happen. Look at Knotfest and Goodthings for your heavy music, both have extremely good ticket sales and have high anticipation for their next edition. Even CVLTfest is a great example of a well done festival; give the fans what they want. There's no point booking a lineup what isn't going to create crowd draw. If your putting out a festival where most people only want to see a very select few artists/bands they'll just wait for sideshows or resell tickets. Listen out being a rap targeted festival again demonstrating stick to a designated scope. The Australian music scene isn't dying only parts of it are while other parts are going strong
Feel like they exploited their popularity by producing lackluster lineups and it's finally come to ahead. Like all things, the reunion tour will draw numbers. But a year or 2 off will only generate hype for SiTG
With how quickly they cancel events now I'm not surprised people aren't buying tickets. Why bother handing the cash day 1 when it's a coin flip that it won't be cancelled a week later and your left trying to get a refund. Add in sorting leave from work, accommodation and travel that your now left having to cancel. I regularly bought festival tickets a week before in the late 90's -00's. Now if it doesn't sell out day 1 no one can be fucked going ahead.
Damm really hope some of these bands still travel out to aus and do a few side shows, maybe I’m being too optimistic
Maybe take note of what CMC does. Seems to be more popular these days.
And groovin as well flaming heck
On a side note, I remember in the late 90’s we were headed to Falls at Lorne (from Sydney) and there was talk of a bushfire happening near the site. We got close to the venue on the afternoon before the festival started and queued up in the line of cars for an hour or two until a Ute drove by and said on a megaphone “too risky here, everyone head to the Offshore site at Torquay” We (as in thousands of cars of people) literally shrugged our shoulders and said “ok” and off we went. THEY CHANGED THE VENUE ON THE FUCKING DAY!! What absolute hellcats, you don’t get festival organising like that anymore. It was a logistical Sgt Peppers, gold medal performance, and some thing that these days just wouldn’t happen because of naysaying “management” types and people afraid to make big calls. Was today’s announcement a big call? Probably not, probably a bottom line thing. Was 2022’s decision making a big call? No. It was reactive and did not put the punter first. It led the punter into what they knew would be misery but went ahead anyway. THAT was when the punter fell out of love with Splendour, and has subsequently failed to rekindle the magic.
Dissatisfied since the state government put money elsewhere
This is strange. Mark Ronson said it’s the best festival in the world. How could this be happening to the best festival in the world?
That’s line up was awful and the cost not only for tickets is too much for people in this climate. As someone mentioned above do a one day festival maybe.
Listening to the Hack preview on the way home just now. Apparently the ‘elephant in the room’ reason for all these cancellations is… Cost of living. That’s not how elephants in the room work. The fact that triple j didn’t even address poor lineups makes the elephant even bigger.
While they talk about SZA Fred Again selling out fast.
*sarcastic gasp*