SO HERE GOES.
Today I want to talk about the state of festival culture in Australia right now. In the past few years where I've been old enough to attend festivals whenever and wherever I've seen a fair bit of change in the whole general arena, I'm talking from about 2004 until 2012 so we're looking at a good eight years there. In the early years it seemed as though Australia had an alright festival culture but with large gaps where some of us where getting neglected. It's the old chestnut - down south and out west we don't get as much attention from big international acts as the east coast. This has definitely changed in recent years where cities such as Adelaide are not ignored by acts who - for whatever reason - cannot or will not include our fair but smaller city in there tour schedule. How many times have we heard the phrase "East Coast Only" with a quietly sinking heart (followed by a fuck you, I didn't want to see you anyway you electro freak.) These days Perth being the up and coming mecca that it is gets a whole lot more attention, despite being so isolated and Adelaide rarely misses out either, with bands bothering to include us in their festival appearances or sideshows. (and boy, are we grateful, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.) Exceptions to this still occur, such as Feist's absence at the Adelaide Laneway leg, though she did counteract this with a solo show in Adelaide a few days before Laneway (which was great for everyone who wanted to pay more than half the festival ticket price for one act oh two if you count Matt Corby sorry... o_O compared to the hundreds of delights on the festival bill this year. not hundreds. I don't feel like counting.)
In terms of more people having access to festivals I'd like to point out Groovin the Moo which since its inception has been bringing not only great acts but festival culture to the more remote parts of Australia (which is uh, most of the country) which I think is a really good thing, I mean I feel much better getting better festival attention in Adelaide, it must be the same for those in really remote places.
A few years ago, Adelaide hosted it's first Laneway festival. I thought this was a great move for music and festival culture. Laneway began life as a little ol' thing down by St Jerome's in Melbourne (RIP) and spread far and wide over that city, then others. The thing about Laneway is it hosts a lot of music people like me want to see and in doing so, gets them out to our country because otherwise they probably wouldn't come out here, it just wouldn't be justified in a lot of cases. I have loved a lot of festivals in my life but Laneway has been the one where, for mulitple years, I have wanted to see nearly every act on the lineup and clash despairs aside, this is an exciting thing. So when Laneway hit Adelaide it was like a big, delicious present, I was happy I could get the experience without forking out another hundred at least on top of ticket price to get interstate and happy that wow, people actually care about Adelaide! On the inside I always feel like some absurdly proud mayor or head of the town committee or whatever when great bands come here "yes yes! come see our beautiful city! see how amazing it is here, feel how lovely the atmosphere is, soak in the grateful delights from the enormous crowd of fans you didn't even expect you had!" something like that..
So we've got all these goodness happening, the festival spirit spreading far and wide, Australian festivals getting a really good name for themselves, but what I also want to talk about is how all of this seems to be going to everyone's heads and it's all going ever so slightly to shit .
Pretty much, everyone - festival-wise - has been getting a little too big for their boots. With all of the good growth that's been happening has been a lot of...well I won't say exploitation but let's just call it negative shit. In the early days, festivals were a "good price." Sure, they were a bit more than the average night out but it felt like you were paying a good price for what you were about to experience. A lot of the one-day-ers were under a hundred bucks and there's something about that hundred line that changes one's perception of a good deal. But then everything started going up in price and I know this happens with inflation etc blah blah economics but the price of festival tickets was going up a LOT and it was happening every year. In a nifty bit of investigating I found what I paid for Splendour over the years...
what the shit happened there?! ok so I should put this in perspective - the first three years were festival tickets only, not camping unlike 2010 and 2011 prices but even if we added an extra $100 onto those prices (not sure if that's accurate, just for comparison sakes) we're nowhere near the $500 mark. I mean five hundred fucking dollars! I remember adding up the total cost of attending and thinking of all the places I could get to overseas for that much. When you add on travel expenses etc to a ticket price like that, it basically turns into your one, big, expensive adventure of the year (unless you're rich of course..) My point is that earlier I was talking about when you could go to a festival for under $100 and feel like the money was worth it, now we're talking trying to justify half a thousand bucks (which some may not understand but that's a lotttaaa money. it is.) And then everyone was sad because it didn't sell out as quickly as other years. Oh please.It's not just Splendour either, it's happening to most festivals. In some cases the price rise feels like natural inflation. In some it feels like we're sneakily paying off someone's debts with a quick cash grab. The fact remains that in the last year or so that booming festival culture has hit a sharp decline.
Big Day Out had a shit time this year. Basically, no one went. But how is anyone suprised at that?!? You organise a huge headliner like Kanye West (huge in costs I mean..) that few in your target audience actually want to see (good work knowing your crowd there, organisers.) and you hand the price of bringing him out here onto your customers. Look, I know I'm oversimplifying a bit here but like I said before, it's my rant, and you have to agree, this is a pretty accurate analysis. The Big Day Out 2012 and Splendour 2011 problems are so glaringly obvious I don't know how anyone was suprised at the outcomes.
Never fear, festival organisers that I know are reading this blog (LOL) I have the solution. I'm just hoping someone with the same sort of idea comes along to fix it all for you. Here it is - DON'T schedule headliners like Kanye. I mean how much did he cost, really? I bet he was a bit of a headfuck to deal with too, amiright? Think about your target audience. Big Day Out is like everyman's festival, it's not the "dancey" one, or the "hip hop" one, or the "indie" one, or the "punk and hardcore" one, it's a bit of everything. I guess this can be said for Splendour too. Think about the diverse range of people you're going to have attending. There might be punks who like some Boiler Room on the side, folksy crowds who like to follow up soft guitars and violins with a sneak peak at some electro madness, the young ones who don't know what they like yet and say they like everything and the oldies coming along for nostalgia sakes, to prove they're still up with it and to show they still like to have a good time. (In typing that I feel like I've passed through all of these stages at some point...just to prove they're real.) In all those groups, who likes Kanye? No one. Not really. Who wants to pay for Kanye? No one.
So here's what you do next year. Downsize! Don't feel bad, it's no crime. Don't try and score some humungous headliner and pay them all your monies. Focus on a quality lineup, not quantity. Don't feel the need to introduce a new stage every year either, here's another tip, people are not super like Superman and can only be in one place at a time. And reflect these changes in the ticket price. It's the classic scenario with any consumer product - charge a fair price, people will buy. Charge too much, no one will buy. You can sell a lot for a fair price or few at a ridiculous cost. You know which works better.
Ok that's it for this. Well done if you read to the end. As a present, here's a nice song to listen to. It just started playing on my iPod and it's calming me down out of rant mode.
PRESENT VIDEO <3<3<3
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