Venue change for Perth Big Day Out, and possibly Soundwave

Big Day Out announced a last minute venue change for the Perth event, moving from Claremont Showground to Arena Joondalup.

The February 2 show will keep the same running times, and all tickets remain valid. No reason has been given for the shift, but Graham Partridge, Chairman of VenuesWest (who operate the venue), seems thrilled by the move, stating: “After more than 150,000 festival visitors to the venue in the last three years it is not surprising to see on of Australia’s best brands in Australian music make the move north.”

Big Day Out organisers praised the City of Joondalup of being forward-thinking and progressive.

Shortly after the announcement AJ Maddah took to his Twitter account – as he does – and suggested that a move to Joondalup might be on the cards for the Perth Soundwave as well. Responding to a question asking about this, Maddah wrote, “I certainly hope so. between the state Gov, local council and the assholes at RAS they are making it impossible to do shows.

“It’s all about pushing events out of Showgrounds so it can be flogged off to their developer mates for apartments & town houses,” he continued. “So they keep pushing down sound limits, cutting down show times, making things prohibitively expensive, etc.”

Future Music Festival is slated for the same day (March 3) as the Perth Soundwave, but Maddah claimed to be “working with Future to see if we can make venue share work” – an interesting idea for two differing festivals, unlikely to share any crossover acts.