When I was 19, I went to a music festival in the north-western French commune of Caen.
I vividly remember the final song – Latch by the electronic music duo Disclosure – because it was during this home stretch that my phone died.
The Beauregard Festival, held next to a 15th century French castle, was my first ever, and I remember the panic setting in as I feverishly combed the crowd for my host sister who had driven me several hours to the venue.
Regional music festival Groovin the Moo has cancelled its 2024 events.
In the five years that followed, I haven’t been to another music festival. Not because I didn’t enjoy (most of) that first experience, but because I haven’t quite had the chance. Now, the industry in Australia is reaching a tipping point.
Australian music festivals are dropping like flies. It began with a handful of smaller events hitting the wall. Then, regional touring event Groovin the Moo pulled the pin in February.
When the country’s biggest music festival, Splendour in the Grass, pulled the plug last week, it started ringing alarm bells. The rapid decline in Australia is symptomatic of a bigger problem, and not because, as some have suggested, that kids have gone soft.
Businesses have had a tough ride in the past few years. Most sectors have felt the pressure, but music festival businesses have been smacked around by every challenge under the sun (and, for those who remember the 2022 “Splendour in the mud” debacle, rain).
Two COVID-disrupted years have been chased up by increasingly extreme weather – from heat warnings to floods – and wages that have barely kept up with the rising tide of price pressures.
Kids have not ‘gone soft’ when it comes to music festivals
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06.04.2024
When I was 19, I went to a music festival in the north-western French commune of Caen.
I vividly remember the final song – Latch by the electronic music duo Disclosure – because it was during this home stretch that my phone died.
The Beauregard Festival, held next to a 15th century French castle, was my first ever, and I remember the panic setting in as I feverishly combed the crowd for my host sister who had........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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