What will stem the tide of Australia’s music festival closures?

Across the Australian music industry, the word is that festivals are in peril. Over the past year, regional festivals big and small – including Groovin’ the Moo, Coastal Jam, Ninch Fest – have called it quits. Sydney’s 40-year-old Newtown Festival did so too. Others took a break: the Wangaratta Jazz & Blues festival pulled the pin on its 2023 festival but will try again this November, and two heavyweights, Dark Mofo and Falls Festival, chose to take a break in 2024 to recalibrate. What’s causing the trend and what can be done to stem the tide?

Mitch Wilson, Managing Director of the industry’s peak body Australian Festival Association, told NME several years of compounding challenges has put the industry on a precipice: COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, unpredictable weather events, consumer confidence and waning interest from the next generation of young festivalgoers.

“We’re sort of in the middle of it right now and just need the time and support to try and understand [what new, younger audiences want],” said Wilson. “We just don’t have two seasons in us to survive, to make a loss here and there and try something new.”

It’s possible that the country’s COVID lockdowns caused many young people to miss the rite of passage that live music events once were. Music Victoria’s recent Perceptions of Live Music Report found that regardless of the festival size, young people aged 16 to 18 were the least likely demographic to have attended a festival at least annually, with at 42 per cent and 39 per cent attending small and large fests respectively. This is 10 per cent lower than expected, with historically 52 per cent having attending a festival by the time they were 18.

Wilson added that a lack of suppliers has led to an uncompetitive market. Rising operational costs for festivals, including escalating fees and transport costs for international artists, are compounded by a weak Australian dollar. Add consumers’ cost of living pressures and you’ve got a perfect storm. Easing of regulatory requirements and costs at a state level is one solution, Wilson said: “Reducing venue costs at government-owned venues, user-pays policing costs and numbers and liquor licensing conditions that are put on by some agencies are really restrictive. They even have flow on effects to sponsorship agreements.”

Despite a bleak outlook across the industry, there are nonetheless signs of life, Wilson pointed out. “There’s strong pockets around the sector, some genre-specific [pockets], particularly in the electronic space, are doing quite well despite the broader challenges being faced.”

One promoter that has both led and capitalised on the electronic music zeitgeist is Untitled Group, the Victorian company behind Wildlands and Beyond the Valley, among others. Speaking to NME late February, Untitled Group co-founder Filippo Palermo said the company’s success – marked most recently by 35,000 tickets sold at the 2023/2024 edition of Beyond the Valley – has been a gradual build.

“We worked in nightclubs for five years until doing 3,000 tickets per week at the Palace Theatre to really walk before we ran with Beyond the Valley,” said Palermo. “And I’m very grateful that we had that opportunity to do that and to really find the capital through saving money through the events that were already running, as well as working through building artist relationships and building community and culture over that time before stepping into starting a music festival.”

As festivals struggle, high-profile headline tours seem to be thriving – from major pop draws like Taylor Swift and Pink to genre stars like drum’n’bass veterans Chase & Status and country up-and-comer Zach Bryan. So it’s not surprising that Palermo says Untitled Group (which collaborated with Unified Music Group to bring Bryan to Australia) will continue to promote festivals, but also focus on touring major international artists over the next 12 to 24 months.

Looking beyond Untitled Group, Palermo said that during this period of high costs and unpredictable audience behaviour, government bodies could look at reviewing their processes and funding allocation.

“I think the bureaucratic loopholes and process to get income from government is a really, really long process sometimes… submitting an application for a grant, for instance, especially for smaller independents is kind of like buying a lottery ticket, but you have to work really hard to purchase the lottery ticket.

“It’s probably really hard for some of the people in these government bodies to understand promoters [for whom] $50,000 goes a seriously long way and is the difference between them being able to run their event or not. I think spreading the dollar a bit more is something that some of these government bodies could look at in future when it comes to investment into the arts and entertainment sector.”

Not everyone believes that government support is the only answer. Greg Donovan, founder of the Birdsville Big Red Bash and the Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash, two of Australia’s biggest remote outback music festivals, thinks that festival operators must take some ownership of their decision to enter such a risk-prone sector operating on razor thin margins.

“When people in business get into trouble, or an industry is not feeling great, people always look to government to say: ‘oh, you know, you’ve got to help us out’. But, you know, personally, I don’t see that as the role of government when we’re putting on, you know, commercial events that carry a level of risk. I think it’s up to us to manage that risk,” Donovan told NME.

Donovan started the Big Red Bash in his fifties with a $300,000 redundancy payout from his insurance career. This August, a record 14,000 punters are set to trek into the Outback plains outside Silverton, New South Wales for the Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash.

Donovan said that while his Queensland and NSW events have received funding for infrastructure upgrades to their festival sites, their success has come down to a combination of ruthlessly scrutinising costs, building community and finding a niche in the market. For Donovan, that means targeting an audience older than the struggling youth market.

“Programming for our festival is probably a bit easier than the youth-focused festival. People in their 20s and 30s [have] fairly rapidly evolving music tastes. Demographics, sort of in the 40s, 50s, 60s, probably what they used to listen to 30 years ago, they still listen to now,” said Donovan.

Both events have also become destination festivals that have fostered community in unique ways. “We have great communities and social media groups focused around the trip and travelling,” said Donovan. “We do Nutbush world record attempts where we get thousands of people dancing together, drag races and people getting dressed up. It’s not just focused on music.”

Still, one thing Wilson, Palermo and Donovan all agree on is that festivals provide huge benefits to the communities they serve, both cultural and financial.

“They give people who live in those areas or are in reasonable proximity those areas the opportunity to come and enjoy [these] experiences,” said Donovan. “The Big Red Bash brought $19million of additional economic activity and tourism spending into the outback and the region. It uplifts the brand and reputation of the location you’re holding that festival in. We really need to keep them going.”

And among the lively discussions about line-ups and international artists, it’s the homegrown talent that’s often forgotten. Palermo believes festivals play a crucial role in platforming local artists, pointing to his long relationship with the Melbourne electronic music producer and DJ, Dom Dolla, who has performed at every Beyond The Valley since the fest’s inception in 2014.

Last year, the ARIA-winning and Grammy-nominated artist sold out Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl (twice) before selling out two nights at Flemington Racecourse. The latter shows are part of an Australian tour that broke Untitled Group’s record for tickets sold within 24 hours of going on sale.

“Dom is a testament to how strong our team is alongside Dom’s team, to work with such an amazing songwriter, an amazing performer,” Palermo said. “To be able to further increase his value in life ticket sales in Australia, to the point of what we just did, it’s nothing short of extraordinary.”