While Soundwave founder AJ Maddah has already detailed the “pathetic” ticket sales that his flagship event suffered in Adelaide, the outspoken promoter has now revealed how the other stops on the tour faired in comparison, with Melbourne coming out on top.

According to a series of Tweets recently published by Maddah, Melbourne came “very close” to selling out its venue of the Melbourne Showgrounds, which has an approximate capacity of 35,000. This puts it ahead of the Brisbane event in the number two spot, and Sydney in third.

Naturally, Adelaide came in dead last, with Maddah telling the Sunday Mail late last month that the South Australian capital saw a turnout of just over 12,000 punters. This was down significantly from previous years. “In 2012 we had 37,000, in 2013 we had 45,000, last year we had 20,000,” said Maddah.

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While last year’s festival turned what Maddah referred to in a Fairfax interview as “a modest profit”, the promoter said Adelaide attendance was “8,000 people short” which effectively “wiped out everything we’re making [after costs] in the other three cities, because we work on very small margins”.

“Your average Soundwave bill is somewhere between 10-15 million dollars in artist fees, and it costs between 2-2.5-million dollars to put on each show,” said Maddah. “So when you’re 8,000 seats short at $180 per ticket, then that’s $1.4 million. So essentially I’ve lost the equivalent of the family home in one weekend.”

Maddah said that 2013, a year in which he booked a super-bill featuring Metallica, Blink-182, and Linkin Park, was the only year the festival made money in Adelaide. “Generally speaking we bankroll Adelaide [shows] out of the other cities,” he said.

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