Today, against my better judgement, I bought a Soundwave Revolution ticket. Since the festival was first announced, I’ve been set on not attending. However the fact that it is Van Halen’s only Australian shows, and they are one of the few bands left on my “see before I, or more likely they, die” list, I just had to.
As I was about to hit the “process payment” button though, my jaw dropped. I had to double check. The price. Holy hell, the price. I did not want to pay that much for a one-day festival ever. And it really hammered home something I’ve noticed lately: the promoters are taking us for a ride.
Without a doubt, Australians love live music. We especially love when international bands come and play our shores. At home, they may play to small venues that aren’t packed out. Here, when they make the effort to visit us, we make the effort to go see them. We thank them. Back home they play really cheap shows, here, they play more expensive shows. Us punters, we understand it though. Obviously they have to fly out here, hire equipment, get hotel rooms and fly the long distances between cities; so we won’t begrudge the extra ticket price.
The promoters though, they’ve noticed this, and are taking advantage of it. For years we’ve put up with it, paying the prices and selling out these large venues, generally rather rapidly. Every year the same tour/festival would come around, they’d change it a bit, maybe one more band, and then exponentially up the price. The Australian dollar is high. Bands want to do almost anything to play here. We want them to play here. We religiously buy their merch and support them while they are here. The numbers just don’t add up.
But over the last year, things have changed. Hopefully for the best. We’re fighting back.
During the festival season last year, most festivals didn’t sell out. Back in the day, hosting a day of music with a few stages and a few international acts was as good as printing your own money if you were a promoter. But how many promotions did we see over the summer just to get crowds in? Buy one ticket, get one free? Show up with a friend on the day and we’ll let them in too? Half price tickets days out from the event? Us punters, we finally cottoned on. Festivals for years have been rehashing the same few international acts every few years and then filling the gaps with the same 30 Australian bands that seem to be on every bill (the Living End anyone?).
The greatest example is Splendour. In my entire memory of living in Brisbane, Splendour in the Grass has sold out within an hour or two, camping tickets generally all gone in the first few seconds. This year though... well, log on to the ticket sellers. Have a look. It’s been a month and you can still buy camping tickets. Even the regular festival goers, who don’t care as much about the bands playing, look at what’s on offer and decide “it’s just not worth it”. Maybe it’s the $500 ticket? Maybe it’s the bands, a lot who aren’t that “hip” anymore or who were just touring within the last year. For me, I only really want to see one or two bands, and it’s cheaper for me to fly to Sydney, see the sideshows, have a mini-holiday and come back up. Way better than sleeping in a tent in a muddy field surrounded by drugged out fools.
Sure, Soundwave Revolution tried to sell it by having all of these great international bands (no locals) but honestly, we can’t see them all in a day. I rush around a lot at festivals and am lucky to see 10, not even if I stick around for a full set. And at that price, I want to see as many bands as possible. I don’t care how many stages you have, I can’t see most of them. And as everyone knows, most of the bands you’ll want to see will be playing at the same time... the end of the night.
I for one, feel embarrassed. I go to these international gigs now and watch the bands play to venues half full (Comeback Kid/Architects/Rolo Tomassi/This Is Hell), sometimes not even a quarter full (the Go! Team) and it doesn’t feel right. The band knows it and their performance drops off. The crowd knows it and doesn’t get involved. It’s a shame.
Promoters, pick up the game. Respect the punters. After all, we are your customer base. Your only customer base.
After Van Halen though, I’ll probably go back to seeing lots of little tours, DIY international ones, where the bands just want to play music for their fans in Australia. Because, as they’ll say, we’re some of the best in the world.
Edit: Just got an email from Splendour to inform me that camping tickets finally sold out.
Double edit: The
Touche Amore/Title Fight tour I was so looking forward to, is $52. That's a pass for me. What a ripoff
