The problem with Australian music festivals
While the emergence of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks was dramatically named British invasion music in the mid-1960s, the more subtle export of outstanding Australian music in the last decade is set to be dubbed with an appropriate title. Perhaps in the modern landscape of internet globalisation, such an influx of art from one country is less shocking – but I can’t help but feel that the quality of music that’s been underhandedly distributed to the world in the last 15 years deserves some sort of cultural titling.
When you think about the prolific turnout of albums by King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, all of which stand alone with individual artistic identities, or the free and easy delicacy of Babe Rainbow, the deeply human songwriting of Courtney Barnett, or the enigmatic energy of Amyl and The Sniffers, Australia seems to have a habit of turning out deeply original alternative artists.
But as their summer draws to a close, and the few festival crews that are left pack up the stages, there’s a somewhat bleak future looking back at them from the horizon. Arguably, the country’s biggest festival, Splendour In The Grass, has recently announced that its 2025 edition will be cancelled (for the second year running), with sources attributing the reasoning as the festival’s inability to secure headline acts big enough to warrant the ticket fees and marketing push.
Moreover, the residential gig scene looks equally desolate, with 1,300 venues shutting down in the past year. When big international bands roll into town, local support acts are often snubbed for more commercially viable international names. Last year, Pearl Jam invited the Pixies to be their support act, while Fontaines DC’s current tour of Australia and New Zealand was scheduled to be supported by Wunderhorse, but when they pulled out, south Londoners Shame stepped in.
So, as someone whose listening habits are deeply influenced by the export of contemporary Australian artists, I am baffled by the continued oversight of their status. How can a festival justify its cancellation due to a lack of headline bookings when King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard and Courtney Barnett all hail from their shores?
During the 2023 Association of Artist Managers Awards, the late Michael McMartin gave a speech in which he called for the reinstatement of a policy that pushed for the increase of Australian artists on support bills of any major tours and has since developed into a movement called ‘Michael’s Law’.
“Everybody knows that there are less Australian songs on the charts right now that at any time since the early 1960s. Local artists and their managers are also facing other historic challenges, including a slew of recent festival cancellations,” said Maggie Collins, Executive Director of the AAM. “These challenges have been recognised by governments across Australia in recent years. Promoters received significant public funding during the pandemic, and they understandably continue to receive public support for some of their major events. We think it is only reasonable that, in return, they should ‘do their bit’ to help give Australian artists a leg up by the simple means of including at least one local act on every international tour.”
Fontaines DC’s invitation to Shame on tour nods to an important counterargument that the exposure of an international tour to a similarly thriving European band is important. But in the case of Pearl Jam, there’s no feasible reason to deprive an emerging act of the opportunity to play on an arena-size stage and instead give it to the Pixies other than huge financial gain.
So, how does this affect Australian festivals?
Ultimately, in a country that stands in isolation so far from everywhere else, it’s hard to embed itself into a healthy festival circuit that aligns not only with location efficiency but also with dates. Given the season flip, bands can’t filter in their Australian festival visits into their summer budget of other stops. But while most events on the line-up have been tumbling like dominoes, Laneway Festival has emerged as a cultural favourite, running like a tour between Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.
This year, the bill was topped by Charli XCX, Clairo, Barry Can’t Swim, Bicep and Beabadoobee, while homegrown bands Skeggs and Girl and Girl were sprinkled in on the undercard. Obviously, it’s symptomatic of the commercial pressures faced by Australian festivals, which are under an obligation to stay afloat and also satiate the desires of music fans whose exposure to global artists is fleeting because of general touring costs, but it feels like a missed opportunity to majorly platform the country’s most important artists.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, event founder Danny Rogers said: “I’ve knocked back huge headliners many times.”
He continued, “These are acts that every other festival has booked, and I’ve said no, even when I knew they were worth a lot of tickets.”
Co-founder Jerome Borazio supported his point, claiming: “Fans know the integrity in our lineup and how well considered it is from top to bottom. It’s not a headline with some fillers. Laneway’s never been about headliners.”
In their defence, it’s a relevant, albeit commercial, line-up. In a world where rising festival costs are often covered by wheeling out heritage acts to fill headline slots, Laneway’s line-up is a valiant attempt at capturing a very present sense of lightning into a bottle. But ultimately, what’s left is a vacuum of homegrown talent whose winters are spent aimlessly hoping for arena support call-ups and their summers in the crowds of festivals that the organisers can’t afford to include them in.
“Australian artists are copping it from all angles,” Maggie Collins said. “Anecdotally, Australian acts who are programmed on Splendour take their entire fee and spend it on production, because it’s a platform to perform in front of thousands of people who may never have been interested in seeing them. That’s how Splendour is regarded by artists and their teams.”
It seems a sad state of affairs for a country that boasts such an alluring natural landscape and a rich cultural history, bursting at the seams with diversity and creativity. But the collapse of their festival circuit isn’t the death of Australian music. It’s a symptom of a much deeper wound that stems back to their week-to-week live circuit that prioritises the exposure of international support artists over homegrown talent. Would a healthier interest in the myriad of local talent help negate the booking costs of headline acts while simultaneously nourishing an already fertile grassroots circuit of artists?
