Future Music Festival a thing of the past?
After its Asian leg was cancelled earlier this year, the Future Music Festival in Australia has also suffered a blow.
The festival – run by the Mushroom Group – posted on Facebook wall on Thursday (April 2) that 2015 will be the last year that the festival is going to be held in Australia.
Since its debut in Sydney in 2006, Future Music had been one of Australia's most successful dance music festivals.
In their Facebook post, which is also repeated on its website , they said that it no longer made "financial sense" for them to hold the festival.
Additionally, Mushroom Group said in a statement that ticket sales for this year have "underperformed."
On comment on the festival's Facebook page reads: "See what happens when you get Drake to headline?"
The Australian version of the festival is very different to the Asian model which is based in one location over three days.
In Australia, the festival was held in five cities over two weekends. Sydney and Perth (Feb 28 and March 1 respectively) and Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide (on March 7, 8 and 9 respectively).
The logistics of consecutive festivals in different cities – almost 4,000km apart for the first weekend – that cater to thousands of people has proved too financially draining.
This map shows the locations.
Photo: Screen capture/Google maps
This of course is not the first time that festival has been in the news.
The Asian leg of the festival, Future Music Festival Asia (FMFA) was set to be held at Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore this year. That was cancelled in early March after the Singapore Police rejected the organisers application for a permit to hold the festival. An appeal was rejected by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In 2014, the third night of the FMFA, held in Kuala Lumpur, was cancelled after the death of six Malaysians from drug overdose and the hospitalisation of 16 others. Several Singaporeans were hospitalised after a suspected drug overdose and two were charged in KL over drug offences in March 2014.
Similar touring festivals in Australia have also suffered financially with many folding or scaling down to one-day events.
UK dance music magazine Mixmag said that a statement from Mushroom Group head Michael Gudinski, said the decision to stop "was not made lightly". It added that it was not the end of music festivals for Mushroom, and that planned events would go ahead along and that the group would soon announce an ""exciting new festival concept".
Source: The Herald, Facebook
Related report:
EXCLUSIVE: Future Music Festival Asia event in doubt after police reject permit
No police permit yet for music festival
Dance music event organiser optimistic of getting go-ahead
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