Features
No Future For Future Music
The days of traveling festivals in Australia are numbered, with Big Day Out’s return up in the air and Soundwave 2016 visiting just three cities. Now, the EDM Future Music is being discarded after its Feb./March run.
Michael Gudinski, chairman of Mushroom Group, announced April 2, “A point came though where it simply no longer made sense to continue.
We believe in the festival industry in Australia and plan to announce an exciting new festival concept in the coming months.”
Future Entertainment began Future Music in 2006, initially as a one-day event in Sydney and then a five-city run. It expanded into Asia in 2011 through Livescape Asia. Headliners over the years included Avicii, David Guetta, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Empire of the Sun, N.E.R.D, and Phoenix.
Mushroom Group bought into the festival in 2013. Its statement revealed, “The last two years of ticket sales have underperformed.”
Livescape Asia also confirmed Future Music would not return to Asia.
Despite growing numbers to 30,000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the third day of the 2014 edition was canceled after six patrons died of drug overdoses.
This year’s festival, set for March 13-14 in Singapore, was canceled three days out due to the government’s wariness of a link between EDM and drugs. Mushroom Group is involved in other festivals in Australia including A Day On The Green winery shows (with Roundhouse Entertainment), the under-18s Good Life and Sugar Mountain.