Petition launched to resurrect Soundwave in Perth

A hard rock fan in Perth has started a petition to get promoter AJ Maddah to include the city in the Soundwave Festival’s 2016 schedule. At this stage, it will only stop in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in January.

A “devastated” Maddah dropped Perth after the 2014 run. For the past few years, he said, profits from the East Coast shows had subsidised Perth. But a 70% drop in attendance from the 2013 show (and half of 2012’s 30,000 crowd figure) no longer justified the huge expenses involved in transporting cast, crew and logistics to the other side of the country.

Going ahead with Perth, he explained at the time, would kill the festival altogether. He struck a deal with Virgin to give Perth Soundwave punters the best discount airfares to see the show on the East coast.

The problems were not restricted to Soundwave. Big Day Out too dropped over half its audience in Perth in recent years after a peak of 35,000.

This year has seen Perth’s live music community putting the pressure on the state government and local councils to step in to stem the city’s venue crisis.

In that spirit, J.J. Gilpin set up a petition to get 15,000 signatures. At the time of publishing it has 2,026 supporters.

Gilpin’s idea is that Maddah could work with the state government and Perth Council to make the festival work on the west coast.

The petition states: “We, the Metal lovers of Western Australia, want our best Metal festival back. Western Australia has a brilliant local Metal Scene, and we love our local and international Metal acts. Soundwave was started in Perth, and we all are disappointed to not have seen it last year here in Western Australia.

“Not only would it be in the best interests for Soundwave to return, but the flow on effect Western Australia would be worth it. People come from all over Western Australia, and even Australia to stay in Perth, spending money to do so.”

Gilpin’s rough estimate of last year’s takings were $3.74 million from ticket sales and $1 million from the bar. “We don't understand how Perth couldn't make any money when there was $4.74 million on the table right there.”

But Maddah, although not dismissing the initiative (“we would LOVE to go back to Perth one day”) has rejected the petition’s figures as “total nonsense”. He tweeted, “The cost of putting on show, before artist fees is over $3.5 million. Bands ain’t cheap.”

Adelaide has also been dropped from 2016 after tickets dropped to 12,000. But if grumblings from South Australian Soundwave fans on social media are to be believed, a petition to get the festival to a fifth city in 2016 could also be a possibility.

Soundwave started out in Perth in 2004 as Gravity Soundwave, providing the music component of October’s water-based and action sports Gravity festival along the Swan River. Of its three years under that name, Vodafone sponsored the first two (for a reported $1 million the first year). Acts booked over those years included Good Charlotte, Unwritten Law, Reel Big Fish, MxPx, Lagwagon, Gyroscope, Kisschasy, Parkway Drive and The Getaway Plan.