With the Aussie festival scene seeing a spate of cancellations in recent months and years, it’s no surprise that the average Aussie punter is feeling a bit hard done by. Well, as it turns out, they’re feeling a bit more vocal about their frustrations, too.
As The Age reports, Consumer Affairs Victoria has witnessed an unprecedented rise in complaints from Australians regarding the cancellation of music festivals for 2015/2016.
While CAV noted that 49 music festivals have been cancelled in the last 6 years, only about 20 complaints per year had been received. However, in the last year, this number rose beyond a staggering 160 complaints.
This increase in complaints does manage to tie in with the cancellation of Soundwave in December of 2015, whose high-profile collapse saw immense pressure from the public in regards to a lack of transparency and customer service regarding ticket refunds.
In addition to the rise in complaints, Live Performance Australia recently released figures for their Ticket Attendance and Revenue Survey for 2015, which shows a sharp drop in revenue and attendance for Australian music events for 2014 and 2015.
As Live Performance Australia notes, live performance events in Australia dropped a relatively small 0.9% from 2014, but attendance for live music managed to shrink by a huge 27%. Likewise, while the revenue from live performance events suffered a 6.7% decrease, live music itself saw a sharp 30% drop.
As sad as these figures are in respect to Australia’s live music scene, it’s not dead yet. If anything, it’s more than enough proof that Aussies need to start going to even more gigs to help boost the local economy and, with falling ticket prices, it could at least be bit of a win-win situation for your average concertgoer – if not the organisers and performers.
