News: Six things we learnt at Big Day Out 2015

Battling against a massive shift in culture, changing consumer habits and public sentiment, the 2014 Big Day Out proved apocalyptic for nearly all concerned. But despite dramatic lineup issues, ownership changes, infrastructure retooling, and the ensuing thinkpiece-party that had media pickling their opinion glands dry, the Big Day Out somehow miraculously survived. This year MARCUS TEAGUE ventured to the very different looking event to see what has changed.

The first fat to be sloughed off the cow was size and location. In 2015, it is no longer an acceptable rite of passage to enter a dust-strewn concrete stadium and navigate 50,000 people under the auspices of participating in alternative culture. There are, as we discovered, alternatives.

In a move interpreted as the final act of a complex checkmate, this year, AJ Maddah now outright owner of the festival shipped the Big Day Out into the spaces vacated by his recently shuttered Harvest Festival. Expanded sites at Werribee Park in Melbourne, Parramatta Park in Sydney, and the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane breathed lush new life into the BDO brand, as did the cap of 20,000 tickets per city. And in a controversial cost-saving move, Perth and Adelaide dates were scuppered in favour of a two-day camping stop at Byron Bay, making the show a truly East Coast-only event.

It wasnt a new idea but a novel one for the traditionally top-heavy Big Day Out. By doing away with their big font headliners, organisers tumbled screaming into the present. In practice, it turned the entire festival into the main event, with big names like Bjork, Deadmau5, Robyn, Kendrick Lamar, Blur, Thom Yorke, The XX, Sam Smith and Jack White, and the recently reunited Sleater-Kinney, scattered among this years main announcement rather than in descending order.

Whats more, with those acts peppered on shady stages and tents throughout the day, rather than vying for the late night slots, punters fanned out across the grounds instead of hedging participation until nightfall. Absent was the usual sense of waiting around. For what? The event peaked all day. It also meant you didnt find yourself at days end gingerly nibbling a tepid hot dog at the back of the masses, watching TV screens as the last train left the station.

If any festivals legacy deserved to continue the multi-genre schtick, its the Big Day Out. They managed to pull it off by this year putting dance and hip-hop acts on late and in the larger domain previously reserved for the orange and blue rock stages and sent the bulk of the rock bands to the back paddock. That switch had the bands sounding better than ever, letting the gear nerds get within earshot of what was being conjured on stage, while the EDM-inclined were able to witness the appropriately over-the-top production in a space big enough to actually dance. Cunning.

This year was quite visibly the start of organisers taking steps to close the gap between the events hoary legacy and the interests of the people they actually want attending. The 2015 campaign to win their crowd back included having a local label curate a stage in each city, arranging comp winners to interview their act of choice and publish the results on their own social media channels, 3D-printing ticket holders faces on to wrist-bands, and doing away with VIP sections all together in favour of tiered decking and raised walkways near all stages. All of which was nearly as great as the complimentary pizza, which tied in nicely with Macaulay Culkins The Pizza Underground appearing on the novelty band stage, alongside OK Go, The Wiggles, Sheppard, The Frozen Childrens Choir and The Beards.

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News: Six things we learnt at Big Day Out 2015