It sucks to live on an island so far from nothing
So.... the festival I was really looking forward to attending in October was cancelled today. Apparently the co-headliner pulled out - this would be the same headliner of whose existence we didn't know about until last week - really made a difference to ticket sales, I tell you.
The article here explains it best, and possibly the nicest - for the event organisers at least. The Vine also has a decent article on the whole thing.
It was rumoured to have been because of Limp Bizkit (woo.... insert unenthusiastic hand waving here) that the whole thing was cancelled. Some enterprising person did this -
before it was edited back a short while later.
There is some consolation though. There will be mini festivals. On the East Coast. And not all the bands will come out here for them - so that blows. And too bad if you don't live in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne - guess you just miss out. Sucks to be you. (Which I'm one of - Melbourne is the closest and we're talking a minimum of an 11 hour drive) That's rather the attitude I'm getting from the organisers. How do you fail so hard at organising a festival?
"The question really has to be asked that after months of hype, marketing dollars, band interviews and tweets, would you really cancel a festival this big because a band you hadn’t even announced yet had cancelled?. Just like that, a band none of us even knew about had cancelled, so it’s over." - John Ritchie on 9th August, 2011 at music feeds
So the question remains, will I go to Soundwave in February? Maybe. Will I be as eager for the line-up? Hell, no. Will I buy my tickets early? Depends. Can I buy them on the day, when I can be sure of who's playing? As they say, fool me once...
So we'll see. I start a new job next week, I may not be able to get time off to travel interstate to see however many bands perform on however many occasions. I think I'll go back to sticking with my Australian bands who do tour to the city I live in.
So congratulations to the biggest festival that never actually happened.