Splendour in the Grass has joined the ranks of the many recently cancelled Australian music festivals.
On March 13th, Splendour announced its lineup, with headliners Kylie Minogue, Arcade Fire, and Future. Two weeks later, on the 27th, it was announced that the festival would no longer being going forward, with the only offered explanation being ‘unexpected events’. Secret Sounds co-CEOs, Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco, made a statement, which was posted to the Splendour website. “This festival has always been a huge community effort, and we’d like to thank everyone for their support and overall faith.”
They soon disabled comments on their six most recent Instagram posts, including their cancellation post. This didn’t stop people from heading to another post without comments blocked to tell the organisers what they thought about the cancellation.
“Make a better lineup next time and you’ll actually sell tickets.”
“Why say “unexpected events” when everyone knows its poor sales.”
“Don’t make vendors pay you 25% of their earnings, makes food there very expensive adding to unaffordabilty.”
The news was first reported on triple j’s Instagram account, where artists and fans alike quickly took to the comments to express their disappointment, confusion and worry. Alison Wonderland, who was set to be headlining the Groovin’ the Moo festival this year (which has also been cancelled) commented saying, “What is happening?”. The Australian band Sticky Fingers commented “We can still fix this”.
It’s been a tough few years for Splendour, which has been active since 2001. Both the 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. 2022 was the year of ‘Splendour in the Mud’ infamously named for the dangerous and muddy conditions of the site, while also having last minute line-up changes and a liquor licence controversy. 2023, the festival finally continued without any danger to festival goers, but headliner, Lizzo, faced backlash for allegedly sexually assaulting her dancers around the time tickets went on sale. But even last year, ticket sales were down 30% from the usual 50,000 tickets to 35,000. Splendour, our country’s biggest music festival, has not had a lucrative year since before the pandemic, which spells bad news for the rest of the Australian music industry.
Groovin’ the Moo also succumbed to cancelling all six of their shows earlier this year. Much like Splendour, the cancellation was announced two weeks after the lineup dropped. They credited the reason to the lack of tickets sales. Falls Festival also cancelledtheir 2023/24 four festival events, saying their team needing to “rest, recover and recalibrate”. Other festivals that have announced cancellation so far this year include Pitch Festival, Mornington Peninsula’s Coastal Jam, Camden ValleyWays, Goomfest, Dark Mofo and Adelaide’s Vintage Vibes.
So why are so many festivals cancelling? The current cost of living crisis immediately springs to mind. Why should we buy expensive festival tickets when we’re all struggling to pay our bills? But with that being said, over half a million Australians bought tickets to see Taylor Swift during her recent tour. The total number of people who tried to buy a ticket is over four million. So, is it just that single night concerts are more accessible than a one or multi-day event?
There are other factors at play, such as unsafe weather events like bushfires and flooding. It’s also a struggle to convince international artists to visit Australia.
Mitch Wilson, of Australian Festival Association , said with production costs being up 30 to 40%, and the low ticket sales of the first two weeks, Splendour would not be able to cover the costs of the event.
“Festivals are really struggling at the moment because of the strength of the Australian dollar. Like it’s actually not that attractive at the moment, given where the dollar is at, you know, for an artist to come all of this way. It’s actually really, really difficult for us to compete against so many other events that are happening in the Northern Hemisphere.”
Will the Australian live music be able to get back on its feet, or will we be seeing more cancellations in the future? The answer most likely lies in whether or not Australia’s economy will improve or worsen.
