If a music festival has not shifted at least half of its tickets within the first 24 hours, the organisers know it is in trouble. If they respond to low sales by flooding the market with sponsored posts or paid advertising, the audience will soon know it too. And nothing deters a potential ticket purchaser like the smell of a dud event.

That, says a senior music industry source who has intimate knowledge of the sector but was not authorised to speak on the record, is the harsh reality of the modern music festival industry. And it is why, for the second time in less than two months, an event once thought too big to fail has been cancelled barely a week after tickets went on sale.

The Splendour bill boasted an exclusive performance by Kylie Minogue, but that wasn’t enough to convince punters to shell out $399 (plus camping fees) for a three-day ticket. Credit: Gareth Cattermole

“Everything is driven by social media, analytics, and algorithms now,” they say. “And that means within 10 minutes of a line-up being announced – even before tickets have gone on sale – you can tell if you’re in trouble.”

By Wednesday, the organisers of one of Australia’s longest-running and largest music festivals, Splendour in the Grass, knew they were in strife.

Two weeks after the line-up (with Kylie Minogue headlining) was announced, and six days after general tickets went on sale, they realised they were staring at a major loss for the 2024 edition.

At 4pm, about three hours after this masthead broke the news, Splendour – which is owned by Secret Sounds, in turn majority owned by the giant US-based music management and touring company Live Nation and promoted by Triple J – officially announced the three-day festival (with a nominal capacity of 50,000 per day) scheduled for Byron Bay in July had been cancelled, due to “unexpected events”.

To anyone following the festival scene, it was all too familiar.

Since 2020, more than 20 festivals have been relocated, postponed or cancelled outright, many as a result of extreme weather events including rain, flood, heat and fires. That is on top of the enormous disruption wrought by COVID during 2020 and 2021.

Just last month, regional touring festival Groovin the Moo pulled the pin on its April/May season, citing poor ticket sales. Dark Mofo (Hobart) and Falls Festival have also gone on (unscheduled) hiatus this year.

Three weeks ago, attendees at Pitch in central Victoria endured extreme heat, conflicting messages about whether it was safe to attend or not, and disruptions and delays before........

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