It looks like reports suggesting UK heavy music festival Download is coming to Australia may be onto something. Live Nation, previously speculated as the promoter set to bring Download Down Under, has purchased the Australian domain name for Download.
In other words, Live Nation now own the Download Festival Australia website, which one could reasonably think they’d only bother with if they actually planned on using it by, say, launching an Australian leg for one of Europe’s biggest heavy music festivals.
Following the permanent cancellation of Soundwave Festival, Australian heavy music fans were given a glimmer of hope after Download booker Andy Copping suggested fans should not give up hope about the fate of heavy festivals in Australia.
Then, when global touring giant Live Nation and homegrown house of heavy music UNIFY Present announced their partnership, their press releases made a point of mentioning that “Live Nation is also the producer of the UK’s famous DOWNLOAD Festival“.
Then Music Feeds reported that the lineup for the inaugural Download Australia is set to drop in 2017, with the festival itself set to go down in late 2017 or early 2018, smack dab in the middle of the summer festival season.
Speaking to Tone Deaf back in May, Venue Collective co-founder Ben Thompson let slip that “three big touring festivals” are set to debut next year, which will hopefully lead to a “sideshow boom” and help stimulate the live music economy.
However, Thompson did not clarify just which festivals are set to debut next year and Download, which this year featured a lineup including Rammstein, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden, has not traditionally been a touring festival, though it does host a French instalment.
