OPINION: Soundwave and the Future of Music Festivals in general

I wrote during the week on my other BLOG about Music Festivals and some of the poor decisions made by promoters (and punters for that matter in the case and point of Stereosonic) and the future of these once giants in the game is now no longer looking like there will be much of a future (music festival).

Soundwave is now completely dead and buried and leaving the scene in a very dramatic, pre Christmas way.

AJ Maddah has always been a polarising creature and in my former line of work, he was feared, working at a ticketing agency it was always yes sir, no sir, call me a fuckwit, ok sir. But for many online AJ is a bully and someone who uses his Twitter handle IAMNOTSHOUTING as it sounds. The ravings of a lunatic to the scale of Andrew Bolt comes to mind.

Soundwave was the one and only rock/hard rock music festival on a national scale amongst indie/boutique and a large number of dance music festivals. This was great for the nations rock fans who still buy tickets and support their favourite acts. The bad thing is rock music is not exactly growing it's fan base. Dance music, RnB, Indie always has newcomers and new fans coming along, but acts like Marilyn Manson and Slipknot, you liked them from the beginning or not at all.

The problem with having a niche festival is you may not be able to grow your audience and with some of his line up choices (never much local talent which in years has frustrated some in the industry) this audience may be very select.

I love music and I struggle to (other than the headliners) find a lot of appeal in their line ups years gone.

The Australian population just is not big enough to support small and niche market ideas anymore. With the rise of Netflixing and Chilling, a new big blockbuster every week, multiple smaller festivals popping up here there and everywhere, regional festivals, just plain taking selfies and the beach, Australians have options and the option of being at a hot (and sometimes poorly planned) festival may not be everyone's top choice for $200 or more.

The cost of festivals has also spiralled out of control, all these promoters trying to out bid each other for acts, line ups getting less and less interesting as the line ups are getting more and more segregated.

So where do I see Music Festivals in the future? Well I see a whole lot less and a lot more spread out, the endless Summer of Music Festivals nearly every weekend is gone, Groovin the Moo, Splendour all have the right idea, staying the fuck out of Summer. Fringe Summer ideas like Stereosonic are just too close to Summer and also after this year I would be extremely surprised if Stereosonic returns. Un sold out cities, deaths, largely similar line ups to past years and scandal after scandal (people drilling holes in walls to hide drugs to name one) is it time to hang up the boots?

Festival golden children like Laneway Festival, Falls Festival, Blues & Roots and Splendour will all always have places in peoples in hearts as will regional powerhouses like Groovin the Moo but a lot of the other ideas are just ideas with little thought or what seems to be care factor put behind them anymore. The thought of advancing money to someone like AJ Maddah from ticket sales to start to fund the next event are worrying and for Christmas I do hope the poor punters who brought tickets will get their money back, Because let's face it AJ doesn't really care about the average Peter from Port Macquarie who has saved all year for his hotel room and ticket to Soundwave, Sydney.

What happened to the good old days, GREED, music used to be about passion before fuckhead money hungry promoters thought they would have a gamble at the music thing. Sad really.