GOD SAVE OUR SPLENDOUR

The older I get, the more often I find myself reminiscing back upon my teenage years. Years that were spent learning to smoke stolen cigarettes, hacking into our hair with kitchen scissors, and pushing the line to see just how much you could get away with to any and all authority in your life. I had a great group of mates by my side; a motley crue soldered together by our mutual love of music.  

So, naturally, one of the key moments for us always came around the easter holidays. A morning where we would set an alarm to get up in time to hear a very important announcement coming through the speakers of my shitty little Mazda 121. An announcement that would then transform into multiple persuasive powerpoints, begging Mum to let me go. When the persuasions worked, we would next save up every single dollar we made at whatever crappy part time job we could find, and make up an excuse as to why we had to have the morning off of school ( IE. Orthodontist apt, Nans birthday, lost the car keys.. ) 

We HAD to ensure that we were first in the virtual line, to nab up tickets to the hottest thing your little teenage brain could imagine. I am of course talking about Splendour in the Grass, the annual 3 day music festival that takes place in the hills of Byron Bay. 

( Facebook post from my 15 year old self & some pics of that time to sum it all up )

Splendour to us was more important than any other pivotal high school moment - more effort and thought was put into festival outfits than Grad Formal attire. And we were not alone in this, even for people who weren't 16 and didn't yet grasp just how big and grand the world was. 

When the time came for my third year at the festival, 2015, tickets sold out in record time - 35 minutes was all it took for ALL three day passes to be completely gone. It was the Golden ticket to wonkas factory, no matter if you were celebrating your win in a grade 10 math class, or a white-collar corporate office. 

It's been about 10 years since these times I'm recalling oh so fondly; and in that period, there has seemed to be a definite decline in the hype surrounding ALL Australian Music festivals, not just our beloved Splendour. This year, 2023, has been the first that Splendour has failed to sell out their tickets.

There's no cushioning it; Australian music festivals are dying. They are becoming an endangered species, and if we don't act now, I fear they will meet the same maker as the poor Tasmainian Tiger... EXTINCTION. Imagine a society where we no longer roll around muddy fields, eating overpriced dagwood dogs with a pair of broken sunnies you found on the ground earlier adorning your face. A world where there is no crying happy tears while you stand arm to arm with strangers as your favorite artist takes to the stage, no fighting over set lists thrown into the crowd when its over and then spending 38 minutes trying to find your friend group at your ( failed) designated meeting spot since no one has reception anyway. Oh the horror! We only know what we got when it's gone. 

Speaking of gone, let's just take a moment of silence as we take a walk through the Graveyard of Australian festivals since you're probably still thinking “no way, festivals are such a money maker! They'll never die! We need em!” Well, In the graveyard we first find well-memorialized legends like Big Day Out, Homebake, Sunbury pop and Soundwave, as well as those perhaps forgotten; Parklife, Future, and Good Vibrations. Lingering at the gates is Falls Fest, who have recently announced a Hiatus for 2023 ( which, not to scare anyone, but IS the same announcement that most of those now extinct festivals made…) 

But - Why so much death and decay? How do we keep our favorites out of the boneyard? 

There are a plethora of causes that could be speeding up the grim fate of our once beloved festivals. From cops, to promoters, to money, to punters themselves.

MONEY MONEY MONEY 

Let's start with the elephant in the room, the reason why the world goes around... MONEY. To be frank, it costs a shit load of money to host a music festival. From land costs, staff, stages, artists, toilets, water, security, transportation, insurance.. The list goes on. In 2022, The financial times came out with a mini documentary to try and contextualize for us punters just how much of a risk is associated with hosting something of this scale.

Point being, there are big dollars being put into this from the get go. And it NEEDS to happen for a festival to be successful, safe and enjoyable. We all know what happens when you cut corners financially ( ala Fyre Festival…). 

And those costs are only going up. According to the Australia Festival Association, the industry was hit with a whopping 30% rise in supplier costs at the start of 2023, with insurance premiums increased by as much as 300%. 

So naturally, ticket prices gotta increase to adjust to the costs from the top end. And, also naturally, punters don't like this. The current cost of living crisis ( which at this point feels like a buzzword boogeyman), means that more people are struggling to make ends meet in their day to day life, let alone find left over dollars to splurge a few hundred bucks in one weekend. Live music feels like more of a luxury these days for rich folks and internet influencers, rather than an accessible, cultural experience. 

Another problem lies in the fact that a lot of the time, Australians' favorite musicians hardly ever come to this side of the world at all. 

When I put a call out to my instagram followers to tell me why they do or dont love festivals, I got “line ups are shit nowadays', a lot. As in, out of 20 people, 17 of them mentioned something along those lines. Personal tastes of my instagram followers aside, this is a sentiment that has been so long running that every year it gets turned into a meme. There is a definite opinion that line ups from festivals across the industry have been declining in value over the years. 

Australia is a super scarce place for bands to tour. The remoteness between capital cities, a small population density, and a hefty distance from the rest of the anglosphere make it so that unless you are a big name like Harry Styles or Taylor Swift, bringing a tour down under can lead to a band hemorrhaging money. So, unless it's a financially viable move, and side shows will be a guaranteed success, artists are going to obviously be reluctant to say yes to begin with. 

Funding from government bodies also play a monumental role, in everything to do with Australian music. Starting from the bottom up, less funding to LOCAL artists = less Australian artists getting exposure = not enough popularity to be billed on a line up to begin with. Hence the foreign artists being brought in, which again just fuels the vicious cycle and creates the expense of overseas talent to begin with. 

Looking at the top level, government grants and funding can make or break a festival. 

As a little contextualising exercise, post covid both the UK government and the AUS government had a designated covid fun to help get the arts, and specifically festivals back on their feet. The UK fund was 500 Million pounds - nearly 1 billion Australian dollars- with festivals each being allocated up to 6 million AUD. On our side of the pond, Australia's RISE fund was only 75 million AUD, with the top hand out being 1.5M. 

It's no wonder how UK festivals continue to thrive with such a brilliant worldwide reputation. Our government needs to put more attention and money into the arts if they wish to keep it alive. 

THE WAR ON MUSIC

Going back to my own personal experiences, I will never forget the first time I came face to face with a punter's most dreaded enemy.. Its not rain, nor low phone signal, not even fashion mishaps take the number one spot. A punters nightmare; the humble black lab, dressed up and trained to find your narcotics, get you kicked out of the festival before you can even SMELL a dagwood dog, and gift you with a court date as a little parting present. 

To keep this from growing too broad, let's focus on the favorite festival drug, MDMA, perhaps wider known as Ecstasy. Typically taken either in a pressed pill, soluble capsule, or sniffed straight up the nose out of a plastic baggy. MDMA was huge in the 90’s and early 2000’s, which coincided with the flourish of Australian music festivals, but this sentiment was happening worldwide. UK rave culture was at its peak, as was the US. Its easy to look back on those days with fond eyes, and try to continue them on into today. But the fact of the matter is that drugs have changed a lot in the past 20 years. 

Dangerously changed. Back in the 90’s, the amount of MDMA in a single capsule would sit at around 80mg per pill, retailing for $10-$15. Today, pills on the dark web drug exchange sites such as Dream Market claim to have strengths starting from 160mg to 250mg, with most averaging to around 220mg. One pill in todays market equals nearly 3 pills in the 90s, with little to no education happening around these huge increases in amounts, nor the culture that surrounds it. 

And unfortunately the amount of drugs inside isn't even the most sinister part; in order to keep costs low, suppliers and dealers ‘cut’ party drugs with other substances. 

A study published in International Journal of Drug Policy, where they tested various drugs at UK festival Garden Party, found that Pills were being laced with pharmaceuticals from painkillers to anti-malaria tablets, while being bulked up by concrete plaster. Drugs sold as MDMA actually turned out to be  n-ethylpentylone, a long lasting cathinone that causes psychosis, paranoia, insomnia, seizures, and even death. 

It's undeniable that there is a drug problem in our country that goes hand in hand with live music and partying. There is no one right approach to stop the tragic and unnecessary deaths of young people from these drugs, but as is the truth in most cases, prevention is better than a cure. The NSW government seems to disagree. 

Following two deaths at Sydney's Defqon 1 festival in 2018, premier Gladys Berejiklian had this to say. “I'll be doing everything I can to make sure it never happens again… this is an unsafe event.” Subsequently, the Australia media coined the term ‘the war on music’ to describe the crackdowns of live music and festivals by the NSW government. 

The message was clear from the people up top. Instead of taking the lead from other countries like England, Europe and even our neighbors New Zealand, who all use drug education and safety as a means of prevention, they pushed harder to shut them down all together. Ms Berejiklian has reinstated that there is no such thing as safe drug use. “Anyone who advocates pill testing is giving the green light to drugs. That is absolutely unacceptable.” 

Pill testing is a harm reduction strategy, which allows a person in possession of drugs to safely and discreetly find out what is actually in it. And by other countries' accounts, it works, with health care workers actually calling it life saving. During a trial of pill testing in New Zealand, 68% of those surveyed reported they changed their behavior after using a drug checking service, with 87% claiming their knowledge of harm reduction had improved. 

Following this success, In 2021, New Zealand became the first country in the world to completely legalize pill testing at festivals, after health minister Andrew Little introduced a bill urging parliament to look at the reality of recreational drug use. Unlike Ms. Berejiklian’s view, Mr Little acknowledged the truth of the situation at hand:

 “The reality is… we know that some people who attend those festivals partake of recreational drugs and substances. They purchase those substances and sometimes they do not know exactly what they are getting.. And there are risks associated with that.” 

The sentiment rings the same within the Australian public. In a 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, we found that 57% of Australians supported pill testing, while only 27% opposed. Furthermore, a 2016 survey found that 86.5% of respondents believed drug testing could help reduce harm by users, while a whopping 87.1% said they would likely use this service if it had been available.

Fortunately, Queensland isn't living in the 20th century ( surprising for a traditionally conservative hick state, I know ), and has taken the lead to set what is hopefully a triumphant precedent of drug safety within Australia. The Palaszczuk government has given the green light on pill testing within the state, following the success of trials done in Canberra. The time is still unannounced, but it seems to be a great step into the right direction, one that hopefully other states can follow with. 

Queensland has already approved the introduction of these services and the NSW Government will examine the issue at their upcoming Drugs Summit. Hear from harm minimisation experts including a live demonstration of the scientific equipment at Pill-Testing Is Here.

Ok - so drugs, and testing, and governemnt, and etc.. why are the police a threat to the future of festivals? 

Lets take popular doof Bohemian Beatfreaks experience as an example. In 2018, they were forced to move their location all together mere days before their 3 day festival was set to commence, after a huge spike in fees promoters are made to pay for mandatory police presence. Their new location was just north of the NSW/ QLD border, in attempt to out run the NSW cops all together. 

The festival took to Facebook with the annoucement, adding “It is truly a sad state of affairs when we have government allowing gambling advertising on the Sydney Opera House, whilst music and arts events are shut down by excessive police compliances and User Pay Police requests that are out of step with the nature of these events.”

The fees in question rose to $200,000, a 1900% increase from the previous year, where the police were asking for $10,000 for their presence. Rabbits Eat Lettuce faced a similar problem, even after running 5 successful incident free years, the police wanted to push to shut them down all together.

PROMOTORS & FRIENDS

Australia has always had a complicated relationship with authority. We tend to make a person holding authority prove themselves to be worthy of the title before they gain respect. The authority of music festivals are pretty heavily put onto the event promoters - which in a nutshell means scouting a location, obtaining permits, booking artists, finding vendors, public relations, and most of all, getting people to come to their event.

At the end of the day, promoters obviously need to make a buck, and there certaining has been a feeling amongst punters that they infact arent happy with just a buck, they want multiple bucks, and that this isnt in the spirit of festivals, that they ‘dont do it for the music like they did back in the day’ blah blah blah. 

It’s entirely possible that we are too quick to point our fingers at promoters when things go wrong, withdrawing respect and reveling in anarchy instead. With the pressure of finances and the government threatening to shut them down, we can't deny that their job is growing increasingly hard as time goes on. However, the people are only as good as its government, and maybe its time for a re-election.

Are promoters out of touch with what we want, instead focusing on self indulgence and the lining of their own pockets?

Maybe. Upon its death, the founder of Big Day Out Vivian Lees called promoter AJ Maddah a ‘magalomaniac’, accusing him of driving it into the ground to profit his own founded rival festival, Soundwave. 

Peter Noble’s Bluesfest-Sticky-Fingers-Fiasco saw local radio stations scramble to give away tickets in an effort to boost attendance, even if that meant free entry. 

Splendor in the Grass saw 2022 to be much of a disaster than they obviously would have hoped for. Being dubbed ‘Splendour in the Mud’, Byron Bay was hit with the most rain it had seen in 50 years- which led to a domino effect, each hit being more sinister than the other. 

15 hour waits to get into the campsite, an entire third of the festival being canceled before it even began, workers and volunteers quitting at a rapid rate after their tents began floating away while on shift, and the infamous bus line hellscape. . . It was nothing short of a horrific nightmare for all of the event organizers. 

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what one thing was the biggest domino that has most likely led to low ticket sales this year. All I know is 2023 feels like a redemption year for Splendour, and they’ll have to do their best to win back the punters.

PUNTERS

The search for the scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions. What if we, the punters, are simply the reason why festivals are falling faster than we can count them? 

When asking some people why live music was unappealing now, there was a massive sentiment that post covid, we have lost our sense of concert etiquette. People dont look out for one another like they used to in the mosh, instead feeling more entitled to be there, to have their own space, to push closer to the artist. 

Festivals used to be just as much about community as it was the music, and if we truly have lost that community then we have lost festivals.

Ok. Maybe we aren’t entirely to blame - as a punter myself, I can’t lie and say I don’t feel disappointed by the state of line ups now when I compare them to what they were 10 and 20 years ago. 

I thought maybe my lack of excitement over announcements was just a reflection of my growing age and loss of touch with what is hot and hip. But join any comment section of a festival related post and you’ll find solidarity from all ages. 

Promoters will still try their best to sell their diamond studded turd, but without a festival culture that people can get so excited by they look past the lack of ‘good’ artists, it’s a fantasy to think it will sell out. 

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

Even after all my research, I don’t really know what the solution is. All we can do is what we have always done, have hope and try to remember why we do this in the first place. Harness that rush of excitement you felt when you saw your first ever live gig, drinking your first ever vodka redbull, waking up hungover in a stinking, muddy tent for the first time. Think about the generations below you who should also have the right to all of these fantastic firsts, and to feel embraced by the power of live music in masses. GOD SAVE OUR SPLENDOUR!!