Soundwave Festival Dead – ‘A personal opinion’
So, Soundwave Festival is officially dead. Promoter AJ Maddah shared the news, as he so often has over the course of the last few years via his twitter account;
On a personal note, I kind of knew it was coming three months ago. Not that the Festival would end entirely, but with the money issues facing the man behind the greatest heavy music festivals Australia has seen.
I knew about band’s not being paid. Antemasque started the ball rolling, and that rolled into Fear Factory’s Burton C.Bell’s candid interview with Music Business alluding to perhaps just the tip of the iceberg. I dug deeper. I found not one, not two, not three….it kept multiplying, the bands that would reply to a simple ‘direct message question’ either on Facebook or Twitter. The question? Simply,
“Are you owed money by Soundwave”?
The answers were sometimes blunt – a simple yes. Sometimes they were telling in their response, outlaying a genuine concern that they will not see their ‘pay days’…ever. Some requested I go public, but as I was acting by myself and not on behalf of this website or any other, I remained quiet. I asked promoter, AJ Maddah on twitter about the Fear Factory interview and was simply answered that it was just ‘clickbait’.
With the introduction of TSS Soundwave Memberships already in production and for sale, I just sat by quietly seething and hating Soundwave when perhaps I should of voiced a stronger opinion. Sometimes, you don’t want to rock boats, especially when the fear of being sued or litigated against comes into question. Were these TSS memberships being used as a scheme to simply riase revenue to pay for this year’s bands? Only AJ can answer that, but it begs the question, why even attempt a 2016 Soundwave Festival knowing full well that 2015 band’s had yet to be paid? Again, it’s an answer for the Festival organisers. Perhaps, we’ll never know?
The revelations of the ‘alleged’ monies owed to bands to Music Feeds yesterday was jaw dropping. I knew it was bad – but that is just ridiculous. How this will affect future Australian tours from the band’s who attended the 2015 Soundwave Festival….only time will tell. We’ve already had UK band, Monuments pledge for ‘crowdfunding support’ following their non-payment.
Yes, it was a great festival.
Yes, it will be missed.
Let’s just all hope the damage done, can be fixed from the fans waiting for refunds to the bands waiting to be paid, and for any future tours.
For the folks wanting to chase up EVENTOPIA – it does say in their policy and guidelines that refunds will be issued.
