THE NAKED CITY: FESTIVALS OF FATIGUE!

Australians love festivals. Hard to say how we stack up against other countries around the world but here you only have to blink and there is another festival about to kick off. Whether it’s music, art, film, poetry, food or anyone of a multitude of themes, the fests range from modest community events to multi-million dollar government sponsored behemoths – the type that regularly suck in all the media attention.

During Covid most Australian festivals shut down for a year or two but many have resurfaced with a supposedly new energy and a welcome response from the public at large – not to mention a few government dollars to ease the financial pain. Yet there are some signs that Australia’s once obsessive love affair with festivals is starting to wane. Good Lord, is ‘festival fatigue’ finally starting to set in?

Already this year we have seen Tasmania’s once ground breaking ‘Dark Mofo’ announce a ‘fallow’ and regrouping until 2025, all bar the annual winter feast and nudie solstice swim. After thirty years the much loved ‘Wangaratta Jazz & Blues Festival’ has called it a day and the once thriving ‘Falls Festival’ has cancelled for 2023 declaring it needs time to ‘rest, recover and recalibrate’.

Earlier this year the ABC reported that ‘Splendour In The Grass’, Australia’s biggest and most successful youth music festival, had failed to sell out, noting:

“Ten years ago, demand for Splendour in the Grass tickets was so high, the three-day festival sold out within an hour of going on sale. It was also the first time festival organisers had to contend with ticket scalping. But on the eve of the festival’s 2023 iteration, the Byron Bay event hasn’t captured the attention of punters, and has failed to sell out for the first time since 2011.They’re not the only organisers feeling the pinch, with several events pulling the pin this year — and it paints a dire picture of the future of music festivals in Australia.”

Whilst most film festivals and smaller community events seem to attract solid audiences, it’s the music festivals that are losing punters by the thousands and battling a range of increasing costs. Many have depended on big name American and US acts to boost their headline billings but with the Aussie dollar wallowing around 64 cents US, the cost of importation is high. Everything is more expensive these days, and with the festivals, that applies to everything from sound systems to portaloo hire and insurance.

Promoters would appear to have kept ticket prices at a reasonable level although attending one of the larger music fests is not an inexpensive exercise. A five day entry to Bluesfest in Byron next year will set you back around $600 – not excessive by current standards. However, by the time you factor in the cost of getting there, accommodation, food and assorted extras, it all adds up at a time when many people are doing it tough.

History tells us that many Australian music festivals have come and gone – the likes of Sunbury, Homebake, The Big Day Out, Good Vibrations, and Livid. Most of them are fondly remembered by those who attended or are now capable of any memory at all. The chances are that the current big name festivals like Bluesfest and Splendour will keep on keeping on and that some of the smaller events will join the illustrious list of casualties above.

The joy of the throng, the experience of being amongst thousands of your fellow music fans, moving, grooving and waving your hands in the air – that’s certainly one of the big attractions of music fests. It worked at the Nuremberg rallies, and most people love the fervour of being in a boisterous likeminded crowd, but it’s not for everybody. If you are agoraphobic or resent the idea of being dominated by the prevailing often drug and alcohol induced mass mentality, then clearly the big festivals are not for you.

Perhaps the answer for these folks is a virtual backyard package whereby you can erect a screen to view the music artists, construct a make believe portaloo out of carboard and spread out at least three or four metres from your invited friends. A noisy sound system might upset the neighbours but when you invite them in they’ll soon leave when they see everybody is naked, Tassie skinny dip style. Print a few t-shirts for your own merch stand and cater with overpriced lentil burgers and health shakes. It’s a micro solution to a macro problem and it might even work as you stage your very own “Little Day Out”.