Why Laneway and other major music festivals are bypassing WA

After several large music festivals cancelled their Western Australian dates, a local Perth band decided to hold their own.Within the past six months, three major touring festivals — Laneway, Strummingbird and Froth and Fury Fest — cut Perth dates for 2027.In response, band Free Aviary will hold their own festival, Lift Off, featuring only local artists around the same time Laneway was originally planned to be held in Feburary."Artists and big festivals always skip out on Perth, either because it's too far or too much money and for a fair reason sometimes," lead singer Tom Stokes said.Members of Free Aviary (L-R): Jamie Floyd, Tom Stokes, Toby Keeffe and Zoe Koong. (ABC News: Mietta Adams)"But it almost hurts us because our local music scene is so strong and those big festivals are the ones that bring those big artists to us."West Australian Music CEO Owen Whittle said the local music scene was better off creating its own festivals.“In WA, we can't rely on touring festivals and we can't rely on people building it for us," he said.West Australian Music CEO Owen Whittle says Perth needs more festivals celebrating WA talent. (ABC News: Glyn Jones)"The only way we're going to have large festivals is if they're grown out of our state and that we own them and that they're uniquely West Australian."Logistical, financial challengesTouring to Perth since 2009, Laneway is one of the biggest dates in state's music calendar and won the inaugural Best Music Festival award at the 2025 ARIA Awards.English indie rock band Wet Leg performing at the Laneway music festival in Perth earlier this year. (ABC News: Kenith Png)Festival co-founder Danny Rogers told the ABC it pained him to leave Perth and Adelaide off the bill in 2027.But he said it cost an extra $1 million to freight gear and to fly the artists over to Perth for the 2026 shows."We try and deliver the same level show in Perth, but it's just been really challenging to just make it stack up financially," he said.The 2027 dates would also have clashed with the Grammys, meaning the festival would have to re-route the tour, Mr Rogers said."Suddenly I would have had to have flown out to Perth in the middle of the tour and then flown back to the east coast to finish the run," he said."Logistically it was almost impossible."Wolf Alice was among the major headliners at the 2026 Laneway festival in Perth. (ABC News: Kenith Png)Ticket sales are also an issue. Mr Rogers said Laneway sold 50,000 tickets in Melbourne and Sydney last year, but only 21,000 in Perth."We just absolutely love doing what we do, but getting a bit of support would probably go a really long way to helping us get back to Perth," he said.Dim future for Australian festivalsAustralian Festivals Association CEO Lizzie Butterworth said COVID's long tail and shifting audience behaviours are creating a "mixed bag" of festival success in Australia.She said Perth audiences also tended to buy tickets later due to festivals being less likely to sell out, making it more risky for promoters.Lizzie Butterworth says the cost of producing events is rising which means promoters need to sell more tickets just to break even. (Supplied)Perth's smaller population, fuel price volatility and increasing cost of airfares and freight made it a harder environment to host larger-scale festival, she said. But she highlighted the resilience of the local music scene."As much as we will see festivals go through a difficult time in certain areas, we also see an industry that is really resilient with a fan base who loves to see music and new ways of figuring out what that looks like."Laneway backs local ideaFree Aviary's Mr Stokes said the Lift Off festival, to be held on February 20 at the Ice Cream Factory in Perth, had already drummed up support within the music community."It's so cool, it almost feels like every aspect of the music scene and Perth is sort of coming together," he said.Mr Rogers, who started Laneway with Jerome Borazio in an alleyway in 2005 when tickets cost just $36, drew parallels the origins of his festival and Free Aviary's idea.He said he hoped their festival succeeded."They might spawn something amazing about the disappointment of Laneway not coming out," Mr Rogers said."We're a festival as well, we love seeing authentic music doing great stuff and the culture of communities."