Soundwave, Good Life swap venues
The Perth music festival scene has hit more confusion with the Soundwave rock festival and Good Life under-age dance event swapping venues.
Both events are on March 3, with Soundwave moving from Claremont Showground to Arena Joondalup and Good Life doing the opposite.
The West Australian understands that the switch occurred due to Soundwave and Big Day Out promoter Arash “AJ” Maddah’s ongoing spat with the Town of Claremont and the Royal Agricultural Society of WA, which manages the showground.
Mr Maddah announced the shift less than three weeks before show day via Twitter, alleging unspecified “thuggish behaviour, threats to suppliers, etc” had pushed Soundwave out of Claremont.
VenuesWest chairman Graham Partridge welcomed Soundwave to Joondalup as “one of the biggest and best festivals in Australia”.
“With a line-up including Green Day and Placebo as well (as) Australia’s finest live rock act, the Living End, the festival may well be a sell-out again as it was in 2013,” he said.
This is the first year for Good Life, which is the younger version of popular dance festival Future Music for fans aged 13-17.
Big-name dance and pop acts, including Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Deadmau5 and Rudimental are due to perform.
Soundwave should be able to share some staging and fencing with Future Music, which will be held at Arena Joondalup on March 2.
However, while Future Music is an over-18s festival, Soundwave is a licensed all-ages event so organisers will probably have to install extra fencing for bar areas overnight.
Good Life promoters Future Music, Frontier Touring and Mellen Events said in a statement that they agreed to swap venues to ensure festival-goers “of different genres are able to experience the best festivals on offer in WA”.
“We felt strongly about assisting Soundwave with the logistical issues they were faced with, as our finishing time is much earlier than Soundwave,” they said.
“This allows Soundwave to fully utilise Joondalup Arena and offer the experience they envision for their festival patrons.”
The West Australian reported last month that Big Day Out was changing venues after a spat with the Claremont Council and RAS, and that Soundwave was likely to follow suit.
The venue shift is the latest drama in an eventful month for Mr Maddah.
The promoter has had online stoushes with Megadeth when the heavy metal legends pulled out of Soundwave, and with an east coast journalist over a story focusing on the financial shortfalls of Big Day Out.
Mr Maddah said that Big Day Out, headlined by Pearl Jam and Arcade Fire on February 2, would not return to WA next year.
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