Festivals: Out With The Old, Out With The New

An inordinate number of festivals scheduled for 2016 have been called off. At publication time Pollstar had record of 23 major festival cancellations, most of which were announced before tickets went on sale.  

Of the events that sold tickets before bailing out, all were either dedicated to country music or held in Australasia. Of these, some fell through amid conflict and disorganization, such as Soundwave, while others gave absolutely no public information as to why the plug was pulled, like Dega Jam. A number of these festivals were relatively new.

A general assumption within the industry is that festival cancellation after tickets go on sale is usually due to poor ticket sales, but the festivals that were axed before selling tickets cited various reasons.

Some said they could not secure the right artists or venue, some cited financial problems, while others such as the Gathering of the Vibes festival said they simply needed a break. 

Simultaneous to this large number of festivals ending, new festivals are starting up. Auckland City Limits, Shadow of the City, Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival , Eaux Claires have all been started in the last year, and Vertex, Moonstone, PromoWest Fest and Chicago Open Air are all slated for kickoff later in 2016.

Merryland Music Fest will host its inaugural event this year, and is being organized by All Good Presents, the promotion company born out of the now-canceled All Good Music Festival and Campout.

This kind of growth within the festival industry is unparalleled for decades.

New Music Confab founder Dave Stewart said at the recent SEVT conference that this represents a revival period in live music, according to Venues Today.

“There was a huge period for musical festivals in the 1960 and ’70s, then quite honestly they died,” Stewart said. “Other than the Grateful Dead, no one made money doing music festivals on a large scale until about the early 2000s. What happened with this generation, because for 20 years no one would do that?”

Below is a list of festivals cancelled before and after tickets went on sale:

2016 festivals canceled before ticket sales 

All Good Music Festival and Campout

Big Day Out

Big Music Fest

Counterpoint Music and Arts Festival 

A Day in the Country

Delaware Junction Festival

Gathering of the Vibes

Groovefest

Ichthus Festival

Landmark Music Festival

Snowball Music Festival

Squamish Valley Music Festival

TomorrowWorld

Wakarusa Music Festival

Wickerman Festival

2016 festivals canceled after tickets sold 

Big Barrel Country Music Festival

Dega Jam

Echo Festival

Farmborough Festival

Maitreya Festival*

Space Coast Country

Soundwave

Southbound Festival*

*Canceled due to weather conditions