OPINION — It seems we may be coming to the end of an era.
Yesterday Splendour In The Grass, arguably the big Kahuna of Aussie music festivals, announced its 2024 event had been cancelled.
It’s not the only one. The announcement follows the cancellation of Groovin’ the Moo 2024 and Falls Festival 2023, among plenty of others.
As someone who has regularly attended Aussie music festivals over the years, the news is devastating – but not shocking.
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While Splendour’s organisers announced they would do their best to bring the event back in 2025, it seems Australian music festivals may be on their way out.
Groovin’ The Moo cited low ticket sales as the reason for cancellation, but Splendour hasn’t shared quite as much detail – simply that the 2024 event would no longer be going ahead because of “unexpected events.”
“If festivals are on their way out, it’s not just the events suffering – it’s the Australian music scene as a whole”
While most people seem to be blaming the downfall of Aussie music festivals on the cost of living crisis, I think it goes a little deeper.
For Splendour itself, it all seemed to go downhill following 2022’s ‘Splendour in the Mud’, when the grounds were ravaged by rain, storms and thousands upon thousands of people dredging up the ground.
READ MORE: Aussie musician’s dire warning after iconic festival cancelled.
I was there that year and let me tell you, it was an experience.
Tents were flooded, every step you took had to be carefully calculated to make sure you weren’t going so fast that you would slip, but also not so slow that you would get stuck, and worst of all, Friday’s acts were all cancelled.
This meant the organisers had to hand out a lot of refunds and, I’m assuming, lose a lot of money in the process.
Since then, the Splendour festival lineups haven’t been what they used to be.
Over the years, I’ve seen some huge acts such as The Strokes, SZA, Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, Childish Gambino and Tyler The Creator at the Byron Bay Parklands.
Even other smaller, one-day music festivals used to draw in huge international names.
At Laneway 2022 I saw Pheobe Bridgers and Fredagain; Spilt Milk has treated us to acts such as The Wombats and Post Malone; Grapevine brought The Kooks to our shores.
Even CMC Rocks has brought in names that go beyond just country music fans, such as Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson, Zac Brown Band and Hardy.
These international acts used to be the drawcards of the Australian festival industry, and while we also have incredible local talent – Spacey Jane, Flume, Lime Cordiale and Dom Dolla, just to name a few of the many – there’s only so many times we can see the same names on lineup after lineup and still get excited about it.
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Where I would pinpoint the downfall of these festivals is the fact they’re giving us lineups with less international acts and smaller headliners, but still expecting us to pay the same price we did three years ago, when some of the world’s biggest names were set to take the stage.
Obviously, cost of living comes into this and we’re all being a little more careful where we spend our money. But personally, if I was seeing lineups the likes of what we had a few years ago, I’d be doing my best to get the cash together for a ticket, some accommodation and all the other expenses that go along with attending an event like this.
It’s not just the attendees who are affected, either – it’s the smaller, less-known local acts that rely on these events to draw the crowd in with a big headliner, so they can take to the stage in front of a bunch of people who are being introduced to their music for the first time.
It’s how some of Australia’s most well-known music acts became who they are today.
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If festivals are on their way out, it’s not just the events that are suffering – it’s the Australian music scene as a whole.
I’m sure there’s more going on behind the scenes preventing organisers from being able to afford headliners the way they used to, such as higher overheads and increased public liability insurance costs, more unpredictable weather events in the wake of climate change and, of course, the effects of COVID on the events industry as a whole.
But surely there is a way to increase funding into the public arts and entertainment sector to ensure the future of the Australian music industry.
For now, it seems we have to say goodbye to some of the events we’ve loved in the past, and hold on to hope not only that they return, but that others, such as Spilt Milk and Beyond The Valley, don’t suffer the same fate.
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