C3 Presents the company behind Lollapalooza and the Austin City Limits Music Festival has invested in the Big Day Out amid what’s been a turbulent year for the iconic music festival.
The partnership sees C3, the 3rd biggest music promoter in the US, and Big Day Out becoming partners to continue to grow and expand the festival in Australia. The partnership replaces the hole left upon the departure of BDO co-founder Vivian Lees in late 2012 and will see the two businesses working together on all facets of the business from talent development, creative execution, production and innovation. Pedestrian spoke to Big Day Out co-founder Ken West who said the partnership was part of a “ground up re-build” of the festival.
West acknowledged that this year was the first in the festival’s history to lose money “there’s quite a lot of damage control to be done from this year, because it’s been quite shambolic”
West also discussed the challenges of running the festival in the current market “the Big Day Out festival’s meant to be a melting pot of things musically happening in the world, It’s very tricky to keep faithful to the idea that it’s a multi-faceted musical event for music lovers, not specifically genre lovers. That’s always going to be a bit of a tightrope. Especially nowadays with such a glut of events and such a talent feeding frenzy going on. The bubble burst in the middle of last year. Some things will spike this year, some things will drop this year and the next year may be the opposite
Regardless of any criticism, regardless of the heated market, regardless of people complaining that it’s too expensive for the Big Day Out but then happily paying $300 plus to go and see Eminem and then wonder why Eminem isn’t on the Big Day Out. There’s quite a complex situation going on, that needs some solid professional, international support to just stick together and keep putting on a good festival. “
The 2011 Lollapalooza festival boasted headliners including Eminem and the Foo Fighters both acts that toured Australia in December but eschewed festivals in favour of stadium shows. Lollapalooza has also expanded to South America with festivals in Brazil and Chile. West remained coy about whether there was any view to expand the Lollapalooza brand to Australia,
