With the arrival of the annual summer festival season nearing, some punters are once again mourning the absence of the Big Day Out, which was a staple of Australia’s festival calendar for more than two decades, before collapsing in 2014.

Though C3 Presents, the Austin-based promotions company who stepped in to buy the event following its demise, indicated plans to bring the festival back in some form, all signs indicate Australia’s most iconic music festival is dead.

The demise of the Big Day Out followed some tough years for the beloved festival brand, which faced dwindling ticket sales and struggled to secure attractive lineups. However, over in New Zealand, it was a different story.

Before the brand’s collapse, Big Day Out Auckland had in fact enjoyed its most successful year ever. “I’d probably say it was the most successful Big Day Out that I did, mainly because of the venue,” promoter Campbell Smith tells the NZ Herald.

“It was one of those moments where I thought ‘I should have done that 10 years ago’. I don’t know why I didn’t do that… We each looked at that and thought ‘we’ve put this show on, it’s been really well received now we’re not doing anything any more.”

But now that’s about to change. As the NZ Herald reports, Auckland is set to receive a new annual music festival that Campbell and his fellow organisers hope will replace the BDO in the hearts and minds of NZ punters.

Smith has partnered with C3 Presents and their owners, Live Nation Entertainment, to bring iconic US festival brand Austin City Limits to Auckland, dubbing the new venture Auckland City Limits.

The event will take place Saturday, 19th March at Western Springs Stadium, boasting a lineup of 40 acts, including some “major international artists”. According to the NZ Herald, there will be a near 50-50 split between international and local acts.

“We want to produce a live music and festival experience that is memorable and spectacular, that expands the format into what we know people want from a music festival nowadays and that is created and curated solely and specifically for Auckland,” said Smith.

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“The Big Day out was an Australian tour and we were just the sixth show,” he said. “We didn’t have a lot of choice in what was coming here and there were a lot more Australian bands than I thought I would ever need because I had to take them one and it often doesn’t translate.”

Auckland City Limits, on the other hand, will be curated with Auckland in mind, taking place in March, two months after the BDO’s traditional dates and coinciding with the annual Auckland Arts Festival.

The event will also differ from its US counterpart, which kicks off next month. Austin City Limits runs over two weekends, attracting some 75,000 punters, and featuring a roster of international heavyweights like Drake and the Foo Fighters, who top this year’s lineup.

Smith is hoping to get ticket prices to under $200, but punters who sign up for the event’s mailing list now can nab $99 early-bird tickets. No lineup clues have been unveiled yet, though the event kicks off just days before Australia’s Byron Bay Bluesfest.

With the Big Day Out’s owners now busying themselves across the pond in New Zealand and showing very little interest in reviving the brand Down Under, it seems that the Big Day Out has well and truly been relegated to the annals of Aussie music history.

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