Big Day Out confirms 2015 cancellation

The Austin-based company behind Big Day Out has confirmed there will be no festival in 2015.

“While we intend to bring back the festival in future years, we can confirm there will not be a Big Day Out in 2015,” reads a statement given to Fairfax.

The news follows a report from Music Feeds yesterday, who obtained documents lodged by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).  The documents details Maddah’s pulling of his 50% share as of June 4 and cessation of his position as BDO Director.

The rumour mill has been spinning since AJ Maddah bought into the fold last September. It was initially believed C3 Presents would rebrand the festival as an Australian arm of Lollapalooza and just yesterday Sydney Morning Herald got in touch with Big Day Out’s longstanding Sydney and Melbourne venues. The publication was told by the Sydney Showground’s General Manager Peter Thorpe “they cancelled the booking last week and we were told to release the date,” and when Fairfax spoke to the owner of a Melbourne venue which usually hosts the festival’s sideshows he said: “Your story is 100 per cent correct. There will not be a Big Day Out in 2015.”

Fairfax also claimed Big Day Out CEO Adam Zammit has been terminated from his position since this year’s tour.

Maddah has tweeted that triple j’s Hack show will announce “the real details” at 5:30pm today.

In January this year TMN spoke to Live Nation boss Michael Coppell and asked for his opinion on the nation’s festivals and in particular Big Day Out.

“Big Day Out has been a rite of passage for 15, 16-year-olds in high school, going to their first festival and that’s been the appeal. I’ve felt maybe they’ve booked to old in terms of the headliners they’ve had in recent years and they’ve lost their core base. I think there’s been a change in music taste so EDM, Stereosonic, Future Music has become a major destination for them.

“I think the real point that comes out is you’ve got to have a good reason for doing a festival, it can’t just be because you can book a big act on a green field parkway, you’ve got to have a philosophy or a style which you bring to it, and if you’ve got that you’ve got to build a successful model but if you’re just booking the biggest acts around and paying as much as you can to get them, you won’t have a festival that lives very long.”

Coppell told TMN that while Live Nation don’t currently have a festival presence in Australia, the promoter is looking to become involved.

“I think we’re looking at some stuff but it all depends on how things shake out after this festival season, it will be very interesting to see which brands survive and which don’t.”