BDO Rebuilding On
NZ Return

New Zealand fans responded more severely than Australians.

Their messages on social media were so vitriolic that its New Zealand promoter, Campbell Smith, was devastated, and fans stayed away in droves.

At that sole Auckland show, Soundgarden‘s Chris Cornell looked out at the empty seats at Mt. Smart Stadium and drawled, “This looks like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.”

In hindsight, Big Day Out founder Ken West says he should have canceled. The show lost $1.5 million.

Promoter West axed the 2013 show and announced Big Day Out would not return to New Zealand. But earlier this year, there was a change of heart.

The festival found a new home at the larger 55,000-capacity Western Springs Stadium & Park.

The Auckland show on Jan. 17 shares the same headliners as the Australian dates, including Pearl Jam, Blur, Snoop Dogg and Mt. Smart Stadium. 

But the New Zealand show has been reorganised.

“We’ve gone into this one on the basis that it has a stand-alone budget and we’ve pulled everything into line,” Ken West told the FasterLouder site. “We’ve negotiated the artist’s fees down specifically for New Zealand and explained that it’s New Zealand dollars over there. We’ve had to reinvent the process to create a viable event.”

There will be more art and culture activities and the dance area, The Boiler Room, has been renamed Lakeside because it is situated on a large lake population with swans.