Big Day Out Music Festival 2014: Overview, Operational Success, Safety Issues, Sponsorship, And Participation

Introduction and background

The event being considered for the report is Big Day Out music festival 2014 in Sydney. Big Day Out is an annual festival that is celebrated across Australia since 1992. The festival brings together popular artists and bands from contemporary music genres of rock, electronic, international mainstream and local. The festival was founded by Ken West and Vivian Lees.

The event has been held every year from 1992 to 1997 and then again from 1999 to 2014. Hence it has been held for a total of around 21 years. The event will be held again after the gap of few years in 2014.

The event is run currently by AJ Maddah and an American music festival promoter known as C3 Presents. The event however was founded by Ken West and Vivian lees in 1992. The event is managed privately with many other co-hosts. It has been held across many cities across Australia and New Zealand. The major cities included Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Perth (22 years of the Big Day Out 2018).

The event have been largely successful in the initial years. Moreover, the success of the event grew much between 1999 and 2014. The organizers have been able to showcase bands like Nirvana, Red hot Chili peppers, Violent Femmes, The Ramones, Limp Bizkit, Metallica and others over the years (Sydney, Australia Music Events | Eventbrite 2018). The average crowd attendance have been significantly large over the years. The festival has been able to pull crowds of 30 to 40 thousand in the past. It is a greatly recognized festival in Australia and New Zealand.

The overall growth of the festival have been fluctuating to some extent. The festival had witnessed steady growth from 1992 to 1997 but diminished in popularity from then onwards. It was revived in 1999 and have enjoyed good growth till 2014. The number of music acts significantly increased from 2007 to 2014.

The event operations have been successful for the large part. However, there have been to instances of death at the festival in 2001 and 2009 for which the festival organizers had lawsuits filed against them. Despite these issues the general management of the event have been effective. The city authorities have cooperated with the organizers.

The Sydney event of Big Day Out 2014 was held on January 24. The event was held in a systematic acts order. The first act was from Nicky Romero followed by the band, Bloody Beetroots, Band of Horses and Vampire weekend. The Next act was the Killers and the final act was Red Hot Chili Peppers. There were 15-20 minutes gap between the various performances. 

The organizers had arranged a tight security system taking into consideration the past issues that had occurred. ID proofs were required to enter the venue. The visitors were pre-requested not to bring expensive jewellery. The venue was sufficiently barricaded in order to secure the venue area.

The tickets were available online as well as offline counters across the city. The ticket masters and BDO operators for ticketing were given the responsibilities for ticket sales and distribution. The highest price for an all-inclusive ticket was 165 Australian Dollars. Tickets were divided into high priced, middle priced and lower priced.

Event history

The venue was Sydney showground at the Sydney Olympic Park. The venue was within reach of an average city crowd with regular trains and buses and other forms of public transport readily available. The venue is within half an hour drive from the main city. Hence, the venue was very convenient.

The main problem area that was identified was the lack of required security personnel. On the basis of the venue being visited by an estimated 35, 000 people there were much less amount of security personnel or volunteers who were available.

The sponsorship of the event was important as the organizers themselves were not sufficient to cater to the financial requirement for holding the festival. The chief organizers were AJ Maddah and American promoter C3 Presents. The rest of the sponsorship was done from various other smaller organizers. Around 50% of the sponsorship was done by the chief organizers. Moving forward the sponsors were other small scale event organizers from Sydney that were responsible for financing most of the rest of the event. The rest of the sponsorship was done by small and medium music companies in the city. The remaining financing was gathered through advertisers and other sources. The sponsorship structure was complicated but effective as the Big Day out was a large music festival. The sponsors however, were not large in number and amounted to only around 20 significant sponsors.

It is recommended that the organizers take into consideration a more fluid sponsorship structure in the future. This will enable them to get far more sponsors and raise more money for the event. The popularity of the event needs to grow further. For this to happen the organizers need to rope in more sponsorships. This will also enable the better media presentation of the event. The large sponsorship would help in the presentation of far more events. Another important aspect is getting the city authorities involved in the sponsorship process. Along with increasing the audience reach this can help to give the festival a new level of acceptability among the people of Sydney. This way the event can truly grow as a significant music festival in and around Australia. Hence, finding new sponsorship is important.

The event has seen participation of a large number of music groups, musicians and bands from Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. The participants included bands such as the Killers, Hunting grounds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Bloody Beetroots, Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend. Nicky Romero, famous Dutch DJ was a special attraction along with the American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Along with the same the event featured some of the most prominent and imminent Australian musicians and music bands. The main individual musicians and bands were prominent names in the international music industry with both contemporary and past accolades in music.

Since the event was held in Australia, the predominant participants were musicians and music bands from Australia. There were a few emerging musicians from New Zealand that participated in the event. The main attraction was the European and American artists. Nicky Romero was the significant presence among the European artist. The most important American band was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In comparison to the Australian and world artists the New Zealander music artists were less in number. However, they had significant exposure through the event.

Overall success

Around 14% of the audiences were regular Australian festival goers that attend more than four or five such festivals in a year. Around 44% of the recorded festival goes were moderate public that attend 2 to 3 festivals in a year. In all the participants were mostly bands and music artists from in and around Australia. The foreign music artists and bands were 20-30%. The festival had audiences that were mostly from Australia and New Zealand. The people from Sydney were the main audience but many were from across other cities and other parts of the world as well.

Local achievements were showcased in the form of budding Australian musicians. This helped them to get significant audience exposure. Many of the Australian artists performed in their very first large music festival. The event focuses on showcasing the local talent of an area through their even. Hence, the Sydney leg of the event had many local participants that showcased their talents. The most important factor was the large number of foreign bands, mainly English and American that were participating in the event. The local bands got an effective interactive platform to perform with the big international names in music.

The high achievement was that the local bands got a chance to share stages with the big music bands and musicians across the world. Although the music festival did not have any particular promotional activity for displaying the achievement of locals, it was important to note that local musicians got a great chance to interact with the established musicians in the world and abroad. This provided them with enough opportunities to improve themselves.

The event was truly world class considering the number of international artists that were involved in the event. Bands like Red Hot Chilli Peppers and musicians like Nicky Romero, increased the experience opportunities of the audience. It is important to note that the event had a large number of popular international bands and musicians that performed on stage. The most important factor was that the event was not confined to only bands or individual artists. A large number of musicians, bands and solo artists from around the world participated in the event. The event was also held in separate cities in a series. Hence, there was also the anticipation factor that greatly added the acceptability factor among the audience. The organization was good with world class music instruments and audio systems being installed across the venue. The international musicians interacted with the audience and greatly improved the event acceptability.

The level of interest among the people was satisfactory. The effectiveness of the program had reduced to a certain extent in the recent years. However, the recent version of the program generated significant fanfare among the music lovers of the country. The festival rejuvenated much of the support it had lost in the past version. The availability of bands such as Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and individual artists like Nicky Romero increased the demand for tickets. The support generated was not huge but substantially effective. The result was that the event was a significant success in the city and the country. The display of international artists generated great interest among the spectators. The stakeholders were significantly influenced by the success of the event.

Overall growth

The event became a significant contributor to the Australian music culture. Events like the big day out have been successful in generating interest about music events in Australia and New Zealand. The Australian music culture was showcased to the world as a result of the event.

The event was definitely a celebration of the cultural diversity of Australia. The large number of European and American music performers, singers and bands contributed to the celebration of culture. The various music performances celebrated diversity and inclusion in society of the cultural, racial or sexually diverse communities. 

Every city in which the Big Day Out is held develops a unique cultural identity through the program. A strong sense of community was developed among the residents of the city concerning the event.

The security volunteers, ticket masters and ground workers were all hired from the city. This created the better development of jobs concerning the event for the city. The security personnel were also hired from the city along with the event management teams. The event resulted in the creation of many jobs.

Due to the event the effectiveness of the Government authorities of the city of Sydney were showcased to a large number of people. Hosting a large scale music event resulted in the generation of positive point of view in regards to the political scene of the city.

The event contributed to a large number of waste being generated in the premises. This was because of the waste that were left by the visitors. The event management team had to take the support of the local authorities for the cleanup.

The stakeholders were positively impacted as the event was greatly successful. The organizers, sponsors and advertisers were able to generate profits as well as audience reach.

The program was telecasted online and was covered by many Australian media channels. However, the program was also telecasted by many New Zealand channels. The media coverage was not huge but significant. This was in line with the promotional media activities of the organizers. The program was well presented through print, TV an online media. The program was live streamed online for better results. The program got showcased in many rock and music related magazines. The Australian, a significant print and online media name promoted the event through their channels. The Big day out as a result of the media exposure was able to garner significant popularity. The online media was hugely successful in the promotion of the event. The online streaming enabled the hardcore fans to enjoy the festival from faraway places.

The outcome of the media exposure was good. The media exposure helped the program to garner positive reviews. The Big Day Out was never held continuously for many years at a stretch. This required the program to be showcased by significant media channels. Thus, it became important that the program’s popularity was rejuvenated through the media channels. The latest version of the event is Sydney received significant media attention due to Red Hot Chili Peppers and other bands that have been past hits in the music scene. The media exposure helped the show to garner significant attention (Gration, Raciti, Getz & Andersson 2016). The magazine articles helped to rejuvenate the position of the media in regards to the performers at the program. . The online media was hugely successful in the promotion of the event and helped to garner significant online attention.

Operational Overview

Promotional activities were greatly needed to make the program successful. This was because the previous versions of the program were not as successful due to the lack of big names. In this version of the program bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and many famous European musicians were performing. A large part of the promotional activities were done online through social media and the official Big Day Out websites (Sydney, Australia Music Events | Eventbrite 2018). The tickets were mostly sold online considering the large audience reach that can be done online. Various website sales channels were used for ticket booking. The activities were mainly done in Australia and New Zealand as the event was in particular significance to the countries. Apart from the online promotions flyers, banners and other promotional elements were displayed in and around the various parts of the city of Sydney.

The communications channels that were predominantly used as mentioned above were mainly online. However, various print and television media partners made it possible to display the advertisements in relation to the program in newspapers and magazines. The local Sydney rock and music magazines were used for advertising. Banners were displayed around the important centers of the city with the names of the big artists that were to perform in the festival. The advertising partners were used to effectively promote the festival. The local music websites helped to generate popularity.

Conclusion and recommendations

The event was significantly successful and the organizers are considering the idea of holding the event in larger scale in the future. The event was not a huge success but provided significant exposure to the musicians. The event can be said to be a good improvement over the last few versions of the event. The event generated fanfare considering the performances of the old popular bands. The event had significant media exposure. The level of interest from among the audience was significant as the majority of the crowd had previously been part of the former Big Day Out festivals that boasted of performances from such bands as Nirvana, Metallica and Ramones. The audience expectations were fulfilled by the presence of bands that had relatively large previous successes in the music industry.

Firstly, it is highly recommended that the sponsorship structure of the program is changed in the future. This will make way for better funds gathering and better management of the event. Secondly, the event promotion need to be effective done in the future. Better promotion will enable the effective media representation of the event and it can be promoted worldwide. Thirdly, it becomes much important that the event is done considering the city authorities as essential stakeholders. This will be beneficial for both the festival and the city in which the festival is held. It is much important that in the future the program is celebrated with greater fanfare in order for it to regain and grow beyond its past popularity. 

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Sydney, Australia Music Events | Eventbrite. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.eventbrite.com.au/d/australia–sydney/music–events/

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Gration, D., Raciti, M., Getz, D., & Andersson, T. D. (2016). Resident valuation of planned events: An event portfolio pilot study. Event Management, 20(4), 607-622.

Amerena, D. (2018). The end of the Big Day Out is the end of one-day festivals. Hang up your singlets | Dom Amerena. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/jun/26/the-end-of-the-big-day-out-is-the-end-of-one-day-festivals-hang-up-your-singlets

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