Oz festival woes deepen with SITG cancellation

Australia’s festival crisis has deepened following the cancellation of the long-running Splendour in the Grass (SITG).

The festival, held at the North Byron Parklands in Yelgun, New South Wales, was due to take place from 19-21 July, topped by Kylie Minogue, Future and Arcade Fire.

But just two weeks after unveiling the bill, Live Nation-backed organiser Secret Sounds today confirmed that it has called off the 2024 edition, blaming “unexpected events”.

“We know there were many fans excited for this year’s line-up and all the great artists planning to join us, but due to unexpected events, we’ll be taking the year off,” says a statement posted on social media.

“Ticket-holders will be refunded automatically by Moshtix. We thank you for your understanding and will be working hard to be back in future years.”

The likes of Groovin the Moo, Coastal Jam, Summerground, Vintage Vibes, Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree and ValleyWays have also been cancelled

It follows a difficult couple of years for SITG. Co-producer Jessica Ducrou reported a 30% drop in sales from 50,000 tickets to 35,000 in 2023, while the previous edition was hit with the worst weather in the festival’s 20-plus-year history, resulting in the cancellation of its first day.

SITG, which was launched in 2001, has become the highest-profile casualty yet on Australia’s 2024 festival circuit, joining the likes of Coastal Jam, Summerground, Vintage Vibes, Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree and ValleyWays, all of which referenced financial difficulties amid the cost-of-living crisis, plus Groovin the Moo, which cited slow ticket sales.

In addition, New Year’s Eve’s Falls Festival, which is also organised by Secret Sounds, fell by the wayside for 2023 in order for promoters to “allow space to reimagine how the festival will look in the future”.

Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year, Music Victoria CEO Simone Schinkel suggested the challenges were a legacy of the pandemic.

“There is a generation who missed out on those coming-of-age, life-affirming moments,” she said. “We’ve had a really fundamental shift. If you grew up in a pandemic, going into an enclosed space that’s small and meant to hold lots of hot sweaty bodies just might not be the same vibe you’re calling for. It’s also really hard when we have a cost-of-living crisis, when tickets are going up.”

“The Australian music festival industry is currently facing a crisis”

SITG had received a A$100,000 (€60,000) in funding via the Live Music Australia programme to assist with organising this year’s festival.

“The cancellation of Splendour in the Grass is devastating news,” says NSW government’s minister for music John Graham. “The festival industry is under extreme pressure, and I am deeply worried about the health of the festival scene here in NSW. The NSW government offered financial support to help the event proceed this year. We will continue to work with them and hope to see them return next year.”

Australian Festival Association MD Mitch Wilson says he is “devastated” by the event’s predicament.

“The Australian music festival industry is currently facing a crisis, and the flow-on effects will be felt across the local communities, suppliers and contractors that sustain our festivals and rely on them to support their livelihoods,” he says. “We need government at the table to help us through this period and assist in stabilising our industry to sustainable levels. This needs a national approach.”

More than 40 Australian music festivals have also been cancelled, postponed, or evacuated due to heat, fires, rain or floods over the past decade, including more than 20 in 2022 alone, amid record rainfall in the eastern states.

Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival, where two people died in 2019, is set to become the first in Queensland to introduce pill testing

This year’s cancellations follow a patchy 2023 season in which Bluesfest lost 30,000 punters and Dark Mofo (Tasmania) and Goomfest (Victoria) took a year off. Several festivals also called it quits for good, including Newtown Festival in Sydney, Play On The Plains in Deniliquin, and Wangaratta Jazz & Blues, Music In The Vines and Goldfields Gothic in Victoria.

In addition, the parent companies of Now & Again, Grass Is Greener and Lunar Electric, went into voluntary administration or put in liquidation.

Meanwhile, ABC reports that Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival, where two people died in 2019, is set to become the first in Queensland to introduce pill testing. Health minister Shannon Fentiman says the state government would invest almost $1 million to fund the the scheme over the next two years.

Festival organiser Eric Lamir describes the move as a “step in the right direction in reducing drug-related harm”.

Last week’s announcement followed a study which analysed drug-related deaths at Australian festivals over almost a decade, which showed that most could potentially have been prevented through harm reduction strategies such as pill testing.

The study, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, and led by Associate Professor Jennifer Schumann, from Monash University’s Department of Forensic Medicine, looked at drug-related deaths at music festivals throughout the country between 1 July 2000 and 31 December 2019.

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