While promoter AJ Maddah and US owners C3 Presents are stressing that Big Day Out 2015’s cancellation is simply a year of “hibernation”, others see the iconic Aussie event taking a year off as a sign that the music festival bubble has burst once again, pointing towards a growing pile of axed festivals and ailing ticket sales.
But the real indication that the Australian music festival market’s top-end is limping more than ever can be found in the secondary market, where even ticket scalpers are struggling to offload tickets, according to intriguing new figures from ticket re-sale platform viagogo.
The Swiss-born on ticketing company, which launched in Australia last September during a media furore over ticket scalping legislation, says it is “unsurprised” by the Big Day Out cancellation.
“The cancellation of iconic, large-scale music festivals has been some time coming,” reads a viagogo statement, indicating that “two thirds (73%) of tickets to the 2014 Big Day Out [sold] below face value in 2014” on the ticket website.
There were over 80,000 searches for Big Day Out tickets on viagogo in 2013, but this year that number dropped to less than half, to around 30,000 searches for tickets to this year’s Pearl Jam/Arcade Fire/non-Blur headlined BDO. “Fewer Australians [are] interested in the mega-festivals and more [are] turning their sights to the smaller festivals…”
But the company says the Big Day Out isn’t the only event that’s suffering, but merely the latest victim of a growing slump in ticket demand for large-scale music festivals, with viagogo recording a “plummeting interest” in events such as Soundwave, Groovin’ The Moo, and Falls Festival – to name a few – all seeing “tickets going for less than the box office price” compared to previous editions in 2013.
There was a 9% drop in searches for Grooin’ The Moo tickets in 2014 compared to last year, with 77% of tickets sold on viagogo sold for below face value, while 62% of Soundwave 2014 tickets were offloaded for below face value.
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“It seems that the cancellation of 2015’s Big Day Out festival is an ongoing trend, with fewer Australians interested in the mega-festivals and more turning their sights to the smaller festivals,” says viagogo spokesman Alex Levenson.
“We saw a similar trend back in February when fans were offloading their tickets to Soundwave for up to 30% less than the face value,” Levenson continues. That particular viagogo report found that fans in the secondary market were far more interested in buying passes to headline concerts from Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Dolly Parton, and sports events more than they were obtaining scalped tickets to music festivals.
“It seems that, with Soundwave’s recent woes, the Australian festival season went out with a whimper, not a bang,” Levenson declared at the time.
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“Festivals are an integral part of any music fan’s summer/winter so, while these larger festivals might be declining, the good news for fans is the up and coming smaller festivals are booming,” adds the viagogo representative.
It certainly seems the tastes of the average Aussie festival-goer are changing dramatically, becoming more discerning to where and what they spend their money on in a fairly overcrowded market.
Even as more music festivals are shelved due to falling ticket sales and ailing lack of interest – this year alone has seen Warped, Fat As Butter, Spin Off, Come Together, and Push Over, all axed – there’s plenty of other events springing up to take their place.
Just take a look at the growing number of newly launched Aussie boutique festivals (eg. Circó, Panama, HoleAndCorner) and the return of genre-specific events (like OutsideIn and Listen Out), as well as the ongoing success of smaller-scale and non-commercial festivals.
