It’s been a tough 12 months for Australia’s music festival scene. New festivals seem to be popping up one week and announcing their cancellation the next, as monoliths of the industry seem to be collapsing into debt-ridden wreckages.
And that’s if you’re lucky. It seems that all around the world festivals are falling victim to mismanagement, inadequate planning, poor sales, horrific weather, and thousands of other variables that could see a festival go up in smoke.
In order to help us better understand just what can see a seemingly fool-proof festival event fail, Tone Deaf recruited Rob Cannon, Head of Entertainment Management at the Australian Institute of Music (AIM), to explore six moments when festivals went bad and to learn how they could have been avoided.
1. Guard Trampled at Ultra Music Festival Miami 2014
When reports broke that 28-year-old Ultra Music Festival security guard Erica Mack was left in a critical condition after being trampled during the Miami EDM festival, most assumed that overzealous gatecrashers were to blame for the incident that could’ve easily turned fatal.
However, according to Mack’s recent court filing against Ultra and its parent company, Event Entertainment Group, as well as the City of Miami and several other stakeholders, there were significant organisational factors at play.
According to Mack’s complaint, there had been an agreement between the City and Ultra that would have reinforced weak spots in the fencing around the event area with “G8″ fencing, a sturdier alternative to the typical chain-link fencing used at many festivals and events.
However, despite multiple warnings that Mack’s patrol area was vulnerable and would require such fencing, Mack alleges that the concession company requested G8 fencing not be placed in that specific area so that their equipment could be moved in and out more easily.
Rob Cannon: “Organising a festival is a logistical puzzle that can challenge even the most seasoned veterans. There are so many competing goals to achieve – in this case, efficiency and ease of access to the festival area versus increased security of perimeter fencing.
“Whilst slowing down access to the festival area for concession companies may make it harder for them to operate efficiently (and this may have a knock-on effect on the festival-goer by way of sold-out food and merch, longer queues, etc.), there really isn’t any substitute for robust safety and security.
“This has to be the number one priority, particularly when the weak spot in question has already been identified. Safety and security issues must be addressed first, and then processes to make operations more efficient for the concessions company can be considered once the new fencing is in place.”
2. Organisers Miss the Boat at Bloc Festival 2012
It went like this: a ship had been sent from Germany to England with a view to acting as the venue for Bloc Festival 2012’s main stage. However, overcrowding kept most of the attendees from actually getting to the sea craft.
After the bars had run out of beer by 10:30pm on the first night, the sound quality had proven a little more than sub par, and with the majority of attendees exhausted after milling around for hours, organisers finally put everyone out of their misery and decided that the event would be cancelled for the safety of the audience.
A shame when the packed lineup featured such a diverse range of quality acts, including Orbital, Snoop Dogg, Richie Hawtin, Amon Tobin, Gary Numan, Steve Reich, Flying Lotus, Ricardo Villalobos, Jeff Mills, Squarepusher, and many, many more.
Rob Cannon: “Great acts, disastrous execution. Sounds like some horrible logistical planning turned the festival into a nightmare experience.
“The layout of a festival is so important – making sure to avoid over-crowding, bottlenecks, sound-bleed from one stage to another, and ensuring adequate provision of facilities (toilets, bars, food) in accessible places is absolutely paramount to providing a positive festival experience.
“The challenge gets even greater when you start using urban environments for festivals (see: Laneway). Unfortunately this festival didn’t get its planning quite right and paid the price.”
3. Floods Headline Glastonbury 2005
Despite many famous occurrences in years previous and since, 2005 proved to be one of the most famous years in the long-running and iconic UK music festival’s history.
While the normal numbers descended on Worthy Farm and the lineup was the kind of quality bill that punters have come to expect from Glastonbury, the area unfortunately went through a sopping overturn when giant storms began pounding down on Michael Eavis’ famous farm.
Rain in England – nothing new, right? Well, this time around, flash floods put much of the festival grounds under four feet of water, while several stages were struck by lightning. However, there were thankfully no reported casualties.
Luckily, a similar flood that had occurred some years before had led to the development of the drainage system that allowed the 2005 flooding to dissipate in just a few hours.
Rob Cannon: “Sadly, rain in England is indeed nothing new, and it seems like Glastonbury is always a magnet for rainclouds.
“When people discuss their past experiences at Glasto, they identify which year they were there as much by the amount of rain that falls as the bands that play (‘Yeah, the year with rain all day Friday and Saturday, and a bit of sunshine on Sunday… oh and Coldplay were headlining’).
“Not much that can be done about this one. If you’re going to have a festival in a field, there’s always the possibility (likelihood?) that it will all turn to mud, but Glasto’s location is obviously a massive part of its heritage and its appeal.
“And you can’t really fault the time of year – it is supposed to be summer, after all. All credit to Glasto, in fact, for an advanced drainage system and other contingency plans that allowed the show to go on.”
4. Blueprint Festival 2009 Proves A Master Plan For Financial Ruin
Arguably the biggest Australian festival screw-up in history. Two guys under the age of 25, now owing debts of over $500,000 due to what they hoped would be the festival of their lifetimes. They promised the ultimate – no lines, a beer tent, cheap food etc. Unfortunately, their dream proved too big and too expensive.
Not only did the day not run accordingly, many bands didn’t show up on the stages due to a lack of communication and the beer supplies ran out on the first day. Not to mention the fact that the expenses for such a large event were clearly underestimated.
The Gray Brothers have since had their cars repossessed and both have claimed bankruptcy. Immediately following the epic festival failure, they had no home to live in.
The boys have bailed to Queensland (who can blame them?) where they are still hunted like rabbits, but honestly, who would allow two young lads to pull off such an stunt when they responded to most questions with, “Don’t worry, Mum’s backing us.”
Rob Cannon: “There’s a lot to be said for optimism and naïve enthusiasm, but it really shouldn’t be the basis for planning a music festival. Running an event of this size and stature takes extremely careful planning, particularly where the finances are concerned, and if you don’t already have experience of similar events behind you, then you’re asking for (massive) trouble.
“You can never be too meticulous in your planning and budgeting, and you have to plan for contingency and worst-case scenarios. Of course, this can be very tricky when you’re also trying to keep ticket prices down and put on a great line-up, but finding the right balance is all part of the expertise of successful festival-planning.
“The organisers evidently underestimated a heap of expenses, failed to communicate properly, and didn’t have their logistics straight. The ‘too good to be true’ promises (cheap tickets, no queues, best festival experience ever etc.) really were just that.”
5. The Laneway Festival 2009 Sardine Factory
It seems like a genius idea, doesn’t it? A huge music festival with multiple stages in the iconic laneways and streets in the heart of Melbourne City? Well, if Laneway Festival 2009 is anything to go by, perhaps it isn’t such a good idea after all.
For starters, far too many tickets were sold. This resulted in the predominantly indie-oriented festival-goers being shoved into small, unforgiving laneways like sardines.
After the situation became dangerous — particularly in Little Lonsdale Street, where people were no longer able to approach the Little Lonsdale stage — angry patrons climbed buildings, trees, and any stable monuments to get a glimpse of acts such as Girl Talk and Augie March.
Then, seemingly inevitably, the cops came. Signs and bins were destroyed, traffic light poles were dragged to the ground, cans of expensive festival alcohol were tossed – one could say havoc broke out.
Long story short, it’s a good thing the festival has since been moved to Footscray Community Centre, with the Laneway Festival now bigger and better than ever. In fact, it’s become one of the most successful touring festivals in Australia.
Rob Cannon: “It did indeed sound great! I guess the overall problem was too many tickets sold for the location. But the challenge is not only to judge the capacity correctly, but also figure out how many people are likely to be checking out each stage at any given time.
“This can obviously change quite significantly as the day wears on and be very hard to estimate, particularly as artists’ popularities rise or fall in the lead up to the festival. Even the well established festivals struggle with this.
“When the Foo Fighters were booked to play the second stage at the Reading Festival in 1995, an explosion in popularity in the lead up to the festival meant that the tent was completely packed to bursting and became a total sweatbox. People climbed the tent poles and the sides of the tent to try and see the band.
“Of course, the opposite can happen. Richard Ashcroft (former lead singer of The Verve) famously spat the dummy at Splendour a few years ago, storming off stage after one song when nobody came to watch him (they were all too busy watching Empire of the Sun or the Pixies on other stages).
“So beware of overselling tickets, and make sure artists are appearing on stages that have capacity for their expected audience – which might sometimes require last-minute juggling (and all the politics around that).
“It’s also worth carefully considering whether a location that seems like a cool venue for a festival will really cope with the logistics required to keep thousands of music fans happy.”
6. The Almost-Blueprint That Was Bam Festival 2010
Normally, Brisbane is one of the toughest festival markets in Australia. So when a few music lovers decided to put on a festival event in 2010, they massively underestimated their capabilities to book a worthy lineup and organise the event appropriately.
Booking a whole bunch of bands most people had never heard of, then asking the bands to sell tickets to their friends meant that Bam Festival descended into organisational chaos. Rather unsurprisingly, the organisers pulled the pin before it became another Blueprint Festival.
Rob Cannon: “If you’re a new artist booking a show, it can be tempting to think, ‘If all my close friends come along (like they say they’re going to), and each one brings two friends, we can fill this venue.’
“Then, of course, people have to deal with family commitments, hangovers, public transport issues, general apathy etc., and before you know it, you’re playing to three bartenders and two drunk regulars.
“This sounds like the festival equivalent. It is hard work to sell tickets – even the big, well-established festivals and tours can struggle. There have to be compelling reasons for punters to part with their hard-earned cash, and unknown bands at an unknown festival don’t really qualify.”
Want to make sure this never happens to you? Apply for a place in AIM’s Bachelor of Entertainment Management course now. Head to the official AIM website for more details.
