It’s sad about the Big Day Out, but all these “RIP” posts on social media today, when the event is still owned by a company – albeit an American one – seems a bit premature.
What comes next for the brand could be an exciting thing. C3 run some of the best festivals in the USA (including Lollapalooza, which, in many ways, inspired the Big Day Out’s travelling model in the first place) and could help rejuvenate the event, or indeed turn it into something else entirely. Either way, be it in 2015 or 2016 (just because the venues have cancelled doesn’t mean it won’t be happening in 2015 – though it’s indeed unlikely at this point^), it’s something for us to look forward to.
That said, the Big Day Out as we knew it is certainly gone… though we’ve known that for a long time now. That happened the minute that neither co-creators Lees nor West were involved. And it’s been something that is pretty heartbreaking for a shitload of people in the industry, as it’s one of the most kick arse festival legacies in the world. Their first festival had fucking Nirvana play. They had RATM and Bjork on the same bill in what I think remains one of the best lineups that any festival has had, ever. They had Neil Young headline because they could.
It was the first festival pretty much everyone I know – including myself – went to. And that’s something that makes these announcements something everyone feels emotionally invested in. But every era has to come to an end. And like the industry itself has been in a period of change in recent years, so too is the festival scene. The bubble burst, so to speak, as tickets got too expensive and the market too crowded. But what’s emerging are some amazing niche events – and the larger events left standing like Splendour, Laneway and even Soundwave are being forced to think more creatively in terms of how they engage their audience and who they engage with. For a while there, things were getting complacent and pretty boring. Another festival in a car park for $150? Seriously?
So what’s the most likely thing from here? Well I imagine C3 will be looking at Lollapalooza as their model. The event was a travelling circus in the USA from 1991 to 1997. A revival in 2003 did well enough, but low ticket sales in 2004 caused a cancellation of the event and an opportunity to rethink the model. The event returned as a single city, two day event (expanding to three days the following year) – in Grant Park, Chicago. And it’s been held there ever since, redeeming its position as one of the biggest, best and most iconic festivals in the USA (something we look forward to bringing you coverage from in August). So those who took note of AJ Maddah’s comment that once you cancel the festival over one year, then it’s dead and buried, need look no further than this event to see that revitalization is possible with the right management*.
So, could the festival move to being an one city event? Definitely. With events like Splendour in the Grass proving that this model can work in our own territory, there’s no reason why the event organisers wouldn’t think that to make the day (or even days) truly big, you need to make it something that the whole country wants to travel to. They may even turn it into a “Lollapalooza” to achieve this – as the owners of the brand, they’ll have that as their prerogative. I don’t think they should do this, however, as international brands have a tenancy to fall flat in Australia (Global Gathering, Creamfields and even Warped haven’t stuck around), but with the right lineup at the right price, anything is possible.
We love festivals in Australia, but inflation and the high Aussie dollar made the growth that festivals saw in the Noughties impossible to maintain. Those that came and went have all but been forgotten, save for the archives of sites like ours. But the level at which we love the Big Day Out seems to be unparalleled. Posts all over Twitter today joke about the decline in fake tans and Aussie flag sales as a result – but these sorts of negative viewpoints originally came about because those who loved the festival into the early 2000’s saw that the festival wasn’t growing up with them. Or at the very least, they had, at their core, outgrown the experience. They were upset by it. People care about the brand, they care about its legacy and if they really do think it’s dead – be that premature or not – they really do mean it when they say “Rest In Peace”. And I have no doubt that C3 are taking notice to these sentiments…
*For clarity, it should be noted that C3 started working with Lollapalooza in 2007.
^UPDATE 26th June: C3 have confirmed that there will be no 2015 event, but they do intend to bring it back in the future, and all parties concerned – including AJ Maddah in an interview with triple j’s Hack – have said that the event will return in 2016. Maddah may still be involved in spite of selling his shares – which was apparently for $1 (with the option to buy them back for the same).
