OPINION — Aussie music festivals are so back.
Just over a week ago, Victorian festival Beyond The Valley released one of the best lineups Australia has seen in the past 12 months.
The next day, New South Wales festival Lost Paradise released an almost identical lineup, with tickets already more than 90 per cent sold out.
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Now, we’re not where we were a few years ago. The Australian music industry isn’t quite thriving the way it was pre-COVID, but things are looking up.
It’s not just Lost and BTV providing the goods. Single-day festival Wildlands also released a killer lineup, again similar to both three-day events but with the noteable addition of US DJ, RL Grime.
With the enthusiasm around the lineups and the promising number of tickets already sold for Lost (neither BTV or Wildlands have gone on sale yet), it seems these festivals may be safe from the fate so many others have suffered this year – cancellation.
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Five months ago, I wrote an article explaining why music festival lovers such as myself weren’t buying tickets anymore.
After Splendour In The Grass was cancelled – following in the footsteps of Groovin’ the Moo and Falls Festival – the fate of the Aussie music festival scene was looking grim.
We were being fed lineups with fewer big names, but still being asked to pay the same price.
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Then, on July 26 when Spilt Milk announced its 2024 event wasn’t going ahead after teasing fans with the lineup for months, it seemed all hope was lost.
Now, it seems Lost, BTV, and Wildlands have figured out the key ingredient to providing Aussies with the kind of lineup we’ve been dying to see without raising the prices.
The major Aussie festivals may even be in cahoots.
Because Lost and BTV are held over the exact same dates, with Wildands’ QLD event also overlapping, you’d think they’d be competing with each other to produce the better lineup.
Just look at their 2022 events – Lost brought in Arctic Monkeys, Lil Nas X and Peggy Gou as headliners and BTV had Flight Facilities, Diplo and Denzel Curry.
But this year, all three music festivals have an almost identical lineup, bar a few differences such as BTV having Natasha Bedingfield and Ice Spice, Lost bringing over Flight Facilities, and Wildlands shocking everyone with RL Grime.
What seems to have happened is the three events have coordinated and worked together to split the cost of bringing in some huge international headliners.
When each festival was giving us a different lineup, we had to make the decision of where to go.
Do we hope on a flight and travel interstate, forking out hundreds more? Maybe a roadtrip of 12+ hours to see the lineup we want? Or maybe we just settle with what’s in our state?
Now, they’ve taken the decision out of it for us.
With each festival in a different state with an almost identical lineup, if you can’t afford to spend the extra money to travel, you don’t feel pressured too.
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This year, all three events are sharing Fisher, Tinashe, Royel Otis, Sammy Virji, Marlin Hoffstadt and Confidence Man, just to name some of the big acts.
BTV and Wildlands are sister events both run by Untitled Group, so they’ve got even more in common with Chase & Status, Horsegiirl and Joy (Anonymous) taking the stage at both events.
And if you’re going to try to poke holes in my theory with the fact Wildlands is affording to bring RL Grime to the Southern Hemisphere solo, they’re not.
RL Grime is also taking to the stage at New Zealand festival Rhythm and Vines, as well as several other crossover acts including Ice Spice, Sammy Virji, Joy (Anonymous) and Girls Don’t Sync.
Now, the logistics of this all are a bit beyond me, but I’m trusting that these organisers have coordinated it to a T.
Those waiting for Fisher to do the New Year’s drop at BTV might just have to send a few extra prayers that he makes it in time from his Qld Wildland’s set that same day.
Unfortunately, as good as these lineups are, many would argue they’re still not quite the same calibre we were seeing a few years back.
But, whether it has something to do with desperation or not, the solution seems to be working – Aussies are finally buying festival tickets again.
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