After a long week of Soundwave drama, festival boss AJ Maddah announced last night that Soundwave 2016 had been effectively cancelled due to what he cites as poor ticket sales.
It’s been a rocky couple of days, with headline band Bring Me The Horizon revealing they weren’t confirmed for the festival and Maddah revealing the festival wasn’t going ahead in 2017 despite saying next year’s event was still on track. Maddah took to Twitter last evening to reveal that the event had now been cancelled after he made a last ditch effort to reunite Rage Against The Machine to fill the empty headline spots.
I am devastated to have to announce the cancellation of Soundwave 16 due to poor ticket sales. I am very sorry. I tried my best. #SW16
— AJ (@iamnotshouting) December 17, 2015
.@zacdoyle Tried very hard to get RATM back together. It didn’t work out. — AJ (@iamnotshouting) December 17, 2015
Things started to look bad when NOFX guitarits Eric Melvin posted to the band’s Facebook page that Soundwave had been cancelled, followed by reports that the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane venues had not been confirmed. A report published in technical magazine CX revealed that after a number of bad investments, including buying out stakes in Harvest Festival and Big Day Out, Soundwave Pty Ltd was now in debt of nearly $26 million.
Maddah has stated that refunds for the 2015 Soundwave will be available via the point of purchase, but has since found trouble with ticketing company Eventopia. Unfortunately this whole mess has resulted in neither Maddah nor the ticketing company Eventopia confirming they’ll refund the tickets. Eventopia have stated that they won’t be refunding tickets, while Maddah is trying to walk away from the situation claiming festival goers need to speak with the Eventopia.
Eventopia/Ticketek have allegedly set up a troll account of their own in order to shirk their responsibility to ticket buyers. #Classy
— AJ (@iamnotshouting) December 17, 2015
Here’s an idea: Contact your credit card supplier and have them refund the transaction. Quickest way to get it done #SW16 — AJ (@iamnotshouting) December 17, 2015
This story was first seen in the Sydney Morning Herald.
