Climate crisis poses urgent threat to Australian music festivals, new report warns – DJ Mag

85% of festivalgoers surveyed by Green Music Australia said a live music event they attended within the last year was affected by storms, heatwaves, floods or the threat of bushfires
Climate change is seriously impacting Australian music festivals with the sector under threat, a new report warns.
Green Music Australia has published new research detailing how extreme weather conditions caused by climate change have made insurance and production costs skyrocket, affected potential festivalgoers‘ purchasing habits, hit the supply chain and more, the Guardian reports.
Rain, Heat, Repeat: How Music Fans are Experiencing Extreme Weather, developed with analysis by RMIT and La Trobe University academics, found that more than one-third of survey prospective attendees choose to wait until close to the live music event date to have a better sense of the forecast and possibility of it being cancelled due to extreme weather. That proportion rises to nearly half of ticket-buyers with those who consider themselves as regular live music event attendees.
1-in-5 respondents said they now purchase ticket insurance in case their event is cancelled. 85% said an event they attended within the last year was affected by storms, heatwaves, floods or the threat of bushfires. This past March, 26 live music events were called off in the lead up to the destructive Cyclone Alfred hitting the eastern coast of Australia. Since 2015, more than 50 festivals were completely or partially cancelled due to extreme weather conditions.
„The normal way the festival industry does business relies on a certain number of tickets to be sold early and often,“ sociologist and RMIT associate professor Catherine Strong Strong told the Guardian. „People are now getting cautious enough about the weather that they’re starting to leave their ticket buying to the point where they can meaningfully look at a weather forecast, and this in turn affects how festivals can assess whether or not they are viable… and for a lot of them, that’s just not practical. A late cancellation means having to pay artists more for their cancellation fees, and it drives insurance costs up even more.“
The report recommends the Australian government and music industry take „urgent action“ to „address the root cause of the crisis — ongoing fossil fuel extraction and inadequate climate policies. Without urgent emissions reductions, extreme weather will continue to worsen, further threatening the viability of live music events.“
It highlights areas that have factored climate change into its art and culture policy, though that is not the norm: „Notably, only Victoria and Western Australia have included climate action within their arts and culture strategic plans. Other states — and crucially, the Federal Government’s national arts strategy, Revive — make no mention of climate change, leaving a critical gap in arts policy.
Read Green Music Australia’s complete report here.
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