Though the national Soundwave festival has finished up for another year, for Perth fans, the event’s conclusion is permanent.

The event’s final edition at Arena Joondalup on Monday was the first and last for Perth Soundwave at the new site, as promoter AJ Maddah previously confirmed, with the festival to scale back to an “East Coast only” event in 2015.

Maddah had already blamed ongoing battles with local governments and the high costs of staging the event as the chief reasons for scratching Perth in Soundwave, but now the promoter has also revealed that the event had suffered from poor ticket sales.

Perth’s attendance “had 1/3 as many people as last year,” Maddah admitted on Twitter, further adding that 2014 sales were around half of what they were for Soundwave 2012 (headlined by Slipknot, System Of A Down, and Limp Bizkit), where it’s believed that approximately 30,000 people turned out for the event.

A repeat of such disastrous sales figures in the WA capital would be enough to drag the rest of the festival down.

In a series of follow-up tweets, Maddah explained: “We have always subsidised Perth w ticket money from East Coast but this year was just brutal.” Adding: “I haven’t minded losing a little bit most years in Perth in order to keep event national, but can no longer take the chance.”

In a community radio interview last week, a “devastated” Maddah said the decision to scrap the Perth leg was due to “the combination of the perfect shitstorm of the Perth governments – both local and state level – being very difficult and making it really clear that they don’t really want to deal with festivals,” said Maddah. “They don’t really care if we don’t go there.”

Additionally, he blamed the ballooning expenses of getting the multi-stage festival and 90+ lineup out to WA on-time and on-budget as an increasingly difficult challenge.

When asked how other music festivals were able to survive in Perth by a twitterer, Maddah responded, “other festivals don’t have 1000+ people on the road + 65 trucks travelling across the country + 11 stages + 86 bands.” Saying that other events’ production costs are “not even in the same league.” “1 more year like this one in Perth and there would be no SW anywhere.”

Another costly decision related to the Perth Soundwave was the venue swap with Future Music and Frontier Touring’s Good Life Festival, ensuring a last-minute switch for Maddah’s festival to Joondalup to avoid ongoing battles with Perth’s Claremont Council. “We had to give Future $250K to move their kids show out to Claremont [Showgrounds],” revealed Maddah.

The silver lining of scrapping Perth is that it will likely reduce ticket prices for punters on the East Coast (by approx. $20)

Soundwave’s discontinuation mirrors Big Day Out’s demise in Perth owing to poor attendance and the 2013 event’s “ugly” financial losses, and further making Maddah’s “there will be zero festivals going to WA in 2015” prediction a reality.

A dim perspective shared by online ticket re-sellers Viagogo, who noted that demand for Soundwave tickets had slumped by 30% on their own digital platform. “It seems that, with Soundwave’s recent woes, the Australian festival season went out with a whimper, not a bang.”

Events involving the Soundwave 2014 lineup have provided some memorable moments this year. Including Gwar coming under attack for ‘beheading’ Tony Abbott, Finnish rockers HIM being robbed, Five Finger Death Punch’s frontman facing court over an airborne incident, and Thy Art Is Murder being (temporarily) kicked off the tour.

Looking ahead to Soundwave 2015, Maddah has already dropped a few hints about the lineup, even enthusiastically telling a fan who put together a fake bill that “you got a few of them right too.” Make of that what you will.

Soundwave 2014 Coverage

Brisbane: REVIEW | PHOTOS
Sydney: PHOTOS
Melbourne: REVIEW | PHOTOS
Adelaide: PHOTOS

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