All Australian, all summer: festivals look within for the immediate future

Australians are facing a summer of local-only lineups during the busiest time of year for music festivals, with no clear path defined for the opening of international borders to overseas artists.

Festival season traditionally begins with Festival X in November and concludes with Laneway in February, and includes popular events like Falls Festival and Field Day. With Australia's borders closed for the forseeable future it's unlikely international acts will be allowed into the country to headline such events – at least not without mandatory quarantine.

Falls Festival organisers have announced this year's event will be fully "home grown". Vance Joy playing Falls Festival 2014.Credit: Anthony Smith

Festival organisers are grappling with a range of new challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic including potentially needing to set up special quarantine areas should a visitor develop symptoms of the virus, accommodating social distancing measures and limited capacity and increased costs associated with this including insurance.

Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival organiser Jessica Ducrou said these costs would likely be passed on to fans through increased ticket prices.

Jessica Ducrou, co-founder of Splendour in the Grass.

"I think any increase in costs, whether it’s through insurance through extra management that you have to put in place or that you are being asked to by key stakeholders or government agencies, all of those costs end up contributing to what the ticket price ends up being," she said.

Despite the challenges, Ducrou is hopeful for the future and was confident fans would support local acts in all-Australian line-ups.

"There are some Australian acts that outsell some international artists," she said. "Australian artists sell tickets. But I think the issue we might have is if every event is relying on Australian talent it will become difficult to sell to an audience ... because it will reach a point where people will want to see variety.

"The challenge in the longer term is if everyone ends up repeating the same line-up in some way, shape or form."

Some promoters are considering all-Australian lineups for their festivals even beyond summer.

Speaking at an online roundtable of live music industry leaders, convened by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age last week, veteran promoter Michael Chugg said country music festival CMC Rocks in March would also likely stay local.

"We're planning and working on a total Australian lineup for March 2021 because we just can't take the risks that they're going to open the borders. We'll have no internationals next year at CMC Rocks," he said.

Ducrou and her business partner Paul Piticco cancelled this year's Splendour in the Grass festival earlier this month, and have committed to an all-Australian Falls Festival lineup in December and January.

"The challenge for Falls will be around social distancing. Assuming COVID is in a manageable place then we are hoping to see Falls operating in its usual timeslot."

The lack of certainty around borders reopening and when social distancing measures will be relaxed has made some promoters reluctant to commit to events in the future.

"None of our companies will put a show on sale hoping that something changes," Mushroom Group's Michael Gudinski said. "If it's 200 people and we decide to do two shows in one night, so be it, but we will not attempt to be Nostradamus and predict anything."

On Friday the national cabinet tasked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee with developing a roadmap for the live entertainment industry's reopening. Outgoing Chief Medical Officer Dr Brendan Murphy indicated outdoor festivals were still a conundrum for health experts.

"The principle really is to make sure [we know] who is there so that ... you can contact people and, at least initially, whilst we're getting confidence, that people are seated and are able to distance," he said.

"At the moment many states are already planning to have live music events in outdoor stadiums where you can put people in seats.

"The sort of festivals where people crowd together in an uncontrolled fashion are more risky and they're probably a bit later down the track."

Representatives from the music industry have asked the government to consider arrangements for international artists and creatives to enter the country without quarantine, however no plans have been announced.