Gorgeous Festival promoter Alistair Cranney says the exorbitant fees charged by booking agents representing Australian artists are to blame for the recent cancellation of the festival’s fifth event.
As Tone Deaf reported earlier this month, Gorgeous Festival 2015, which was to be staged in the McLaren Vale wine region and headlined by Kate Miller-Heidke, was cancelled due to “insufficient” early ticket sales.
“It is with heavy hearts that we must announce the cancellation of Gorgeous Festival 2015,” organisers wrote. “Early ticket sales were not of a level sufficient to finance the Festival we aspired to.”
However, Cranney now says that it wasn’t simply a matter of a lacklustre box office turnout. Speaking to Adelaide Now, the promoter said the “ridiculous” fees charged by agents made the festival unfeasible.
“We’d arguably booked a smaller lineup this year in terms of profile [but] a lot of that was driven by the agents just wanting ridiculous amounts of money to book people,” he explained.
“I was offered Paul Kelly and they wanted $100,000 for him. I love Paul Kelly but he’d already done two shows in SA this year. A lot of those people would not be inclined to pay money to see him again.”
“We got pushed really hard to take Angus and Julia Stone, they still wanted $80,000 for that. Interestingly, we got offered them a year earlier and they wanted $120,000 and they kept trying to tell me the reason they wanted less this year was because they were being nice.”
Cranney claimed that going ahead with this year’s event, which also featured appearances from Melbourne Ska Orchestra, Stonefield, Montaigne, and more, would have lost him between $60,000 and $100,000.
“It’s extremely disappointing, it’s hard to put into words. I’ve spent 20 years dreaming about it and the last five years building a brand and this year we didn’t sell enough tickets to make it viable to continue,” he said.
Speaking to InDaily after the event’s cancellation, Cranney said he thinks “booking agents have a lot to answer for in terms of the damage they have done to the industry… they charge a lot of money for artists”.
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Cranney also cited the glut of events happening in South Australia as influencing poor ticket sales, which were significantly down on last year’s event, which featured Xavier Rudd, The Waifs, and The Beautiful Girls.
“There just seems to be a lot more on… from the Fashion Festival, to Cheesefest, there was the Melbourne Cup, Handpicked Festival, Riverfest… on the same weekend is the Test match cricket at Adelaide Oval as well,” he said.
Meanwhile, PR operator Anna Bartsch claims she is still “owed just under $5,000 from the 2014 festival”, with attempts to reclaim the money unsuccessful. However, Cranney said he has no unpaid contract with Bartsch.
The cancellation of Gorgeous Festival was the latest in a string of boutique Australian events to see cancellation, including the Sydney instalment of Out On The Weekend and the highly publicised cancellation of Soulfest.
