Big Day Out 2015 music festival cancelled, American promoter C3 Presents confirms

BIG Day Out is off next year but will be back, according to the American promoters who now solely own the 22-year-old music event.

Big Day Out 2014. Pictured: Lead singer of Pearl Jam Eddie Vedder. Picture: Attila Szilvasi.

BIG Day Out is off next year but will be back, according to the American promoters who now solely own the 22-year-old event.

Lollapalooza producers C3 Presents confirmed they will rest the national festival which is believed to have incurred millions of dollars of debt after this year’s festival.

“C3 Presents is proud to own Big Day Out, one of the most iconic and established festival brands in the world,” the promoters said in a statement issued overnight.

“While we intend to bring back the festival in future years, we can confirm there will not be a Big Day Out in 2015.

“We love working on BDO and are excited about the future.”

GALLERY: Big Day Out in Sydney

ANGER: Blur pull out of 2013 Big Day Out

OVERHAUL: Big Day Out tries to fix 2014 festival

The world-renowned festival has gone through a tumultuous few years of ownership shuffles since co-founders Vivian Lees and Ken West split in 2011.

Lees was the first to jump ship with West taking on American event producers C3 Presents as a partner.

West then bowed out in September last year with Soundwave boss AJ Maddah taking his stake to keep Big Day Out alive this year.

Soundwave and Big day Out promoter AJ Maddah.

In November last year headliners Blur pulled out of the 2014 Big Day Out in a move which turned acrimonious when the band blamed the organisers for “constantly shifting goalposts”.

There were wholesale cuts in staffing and costs but with ticket sales down for the 2014 shows headlined by Pearl Jam and Arcade Fire, the future of the Big Day Out in 2015 appeared shaky.

C3 Presents stage the successful Lollapalooza festival in Chicago which has also expanded into South America in recent years.

Big Day Out headliners Arcade Fire at the Sydney Showgrounds. Picture: Attila Szilvasi.

There has been speculation they may consider rebranding Big Day Out as a Lollapalooza spin-off to reinvent the 22-year-old travelling musical circus.

Maddah has also confirmed the Warped festival will not go ahead this year but is believed to be gearing up to announce the line-up of his Soundwave rock event.

Organisers of the Fat As Butter festival in Newcastle cancelled this year’s show yesterday.

“Despite six months of scouring the world we just haven’t been able to land a line up that we reckon you guys would come and play with,” they posted on their social media pages.

“It was a decision we agonised over, but sometimes the fickle gods of the almighty line up just don’t co operate!”

Despite rumours that more of the national touring festivals may have to scale back their events due to declining ticket sales and escalating costs to secure headliners, sources have confirmed Future Music will go ahead in 2015.