It’s a state of some good news, some bad news for the state of Australian music festivals today. So let’s start with the good shall we?
Following last month’s news of the cancellation of the Perth-based On The Bright Side Festival, which was designed to lure Splendour in the Grass acts to the west coast, WA music fans must have been worrying how they were supposed to get their live music fix. Fortunately, now they can breathe a sigh of relief with news that the annual Southbound Music Festival will indeed be going ahead a scheduled for 2013.
This morning FasterLouder confirmed that the West Australian equivalent of the East Coast’s Falls Festival has announced its official return for next year, in the post-New Year dates of Friday 4th and Saturday 5th of January. Located at the Sir Stewart Bovell Park in Busselton, Southbound 2013 haven’t yet announced any further details, including the ever-crucial line-up, but the swish new frontpage of their website is offering registration for updates.
Meanwhile, the Brisbane equivalent of the Falls Festival season, Sunset Sounds, came off the back of a successful (though very wet) 2011 only to take a break for 2012. The official website stating “we’re just taking some time out this year to cook up an even bigger and better event in 2013.”
Ready for the bad news? FasterLouder confirms, after contacting a Sunset Sounds representative, that despite initial promises – they won’t be returning next year.
It’s another sorry addition to the ever-growing list of Australian music festivals that have fallen over this year. Aside from the aforementioned cancellation of Perth’s On The Bright Side, the last twelve months has seen Victoria’s Castle Music Festival fall-over and NSW’s Central Coast Coaster Festival coming apart. Also hitting the scrapheap was Supafest‘s super failure, Good Vibrations calling it a day for another year, and who could forget the disastrous Soundwave Revolution which fell over in a spectacular fashion just weeks out from the event.
