Another West Australian music festival has collapsed, with organisers blaming poor ticket sales, high insurance costs and the last-minute withdrawal of an international headliner.
Announced in September, the You & Me Festival promised to bring a stellar line-up of local and international artists to Bunbury, about 170 kilometres south of Perth.
Soulja Boy and The Veronicas were among the drawcard names
Events company Together Group had hoped it would fill the gap left by the cancellation of Bunbury’s flagship festival Groovin the Moo in February.
Soulja Boy was one of the festival’s scheduled headliners. (Supplied)
On Friday, it announced You & Me would not be going ahead and all ticketholders would receive a full refund.
Founder and director Bailey Chalmers said the decision was not made lightly.
“The one thing we never wanted to do was cancel,” he said.
He said a major factor was the withdrawal of an international headliner, declining to identify which artist had pulled out.
“[He] actually wasn’t able to get into the country,” Mr Chalmers said.
“Unless you can find a replacement of similar calibre, it becomes an issue of try[ing] to go ahead with a very different show than was originally advertised.”
He said low ticket sales and high insurance costs were also factors
The City of Bunbury said the $40,000 funding allocated to the event had been redirected back into round two of its grant program, which was open for applications.
“It is disappointing another significant event has been cancelled in our region,” Mayor Jaysen Miguel said.
“But we are optimistic … more will be held in Bunbury in the future.”
Mr Chalmers said the team was committed to revisiting the idea when the music scene was in a stronger position.
The collapse of the festival follows the cancellation of the annual Groovin the Moo event, which toured Bunbury. (ABC South West WA: Sam Tomlin)
Seven-figure costs
Overall, Mr Chalmers said Together Group had sunk around $1 million into the event, largely in deposits paid to artists.
“These days due to music festivals being so up and down with cancelling and not going ahead, a lot of artists now are taking bigger deposits,” he said.
“Some artists are asking for 100 per cent of [their] fee up front.”
He said he would like to see more government grants for music festivals — something he was not alone in calling for.
The Veronicas were due to headline the now cancelled You & Me Festival in South West WA. (ABC News)
As music festivals across the country drop like flies, event organisers and artists have called out the lack of state and federal support.
He said he would like to see the government chip in given the benefits big music events brought to the state.
The state government said it had no oversight of the event which was council-funded.
DJ Mandy, Coterie and Golden Features were among this billed to play You & Me festival over New Year’s. (Supplied)
Camping festivals fade into memory
At 24 years old, Mr Chalmers has never actually been to a camping music festival himself.
But he said Southbound — a WA festival that ran for a decade before it was cancelled in 2016 — loomed large in his imagination.
Together Group had been hoping to bring a similar event back to the state after watching artists and punters travelling to the east coast for popular camping festivals like Strawberry Fields and Beyond the Valley.
“We were like, why can’t we bring one here? So that was the plan … Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out,” Mr Chalmers said.
The Southbound Music Festival drew in crowds of 15,000 people. (Supplied: Southbound)
WA musician Sam McGovern said it was going to be his first major festival as an artist.
“Me and my band had developed such a cool live set. It was going to be phenomenal,” he said.
“I’d spent a lot of money for this new system we were using at the festival.”
He said being an original musician was not remotely profitable at the moment but he felt no one in particular was to blame.
“We might just be in this phase right now where it’s just really tough for everyone,” Mr McGovern said.
Avid festival goer Megan Jost, who had tickets to You & Me, said she was sad younger music fans would miss out on the festival experience.
“There’s just not much happening down this way for the younger guys,” the 41-year-old said.
“It would have been good for them.”
