Three festivals cancel Perth dates for 2027 — ABC News Australia
In Perth, Australia, three major touring music festivals — Laneway, Strummingbird and Froth and Fury Fest — have cancelled their dates in the city for 2027. As ABC News Australia reports, all three events have removed their Perth dates from their schedules over the past six months.
High costs and logistics
Laneway co-founder Danny Rogers said it was painful for organisers to drop Perth and Adelaide, but staging the festival in Perth was financially difficult. According to him, the additional costs of transporting equipment and flying artists to Perth for the 2026 shows amounted to $1 million.
Another issue was the 2027 schedule: the festival dates overlapped with the Grammy Awards ceremony. Rogers said this would have required bringing artists to Perth in the middle of their touring route and then returning them to Australia’s east coast. He also noted that Laneway sold a total of 50,000 tickets in Melbourne and Sydney last year, compared with 21,000 in Perth.
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Local festival
In response, Perth band Free Aviary is organising its own festival, Lift Off, featuring only local performers. The event is scheduled for February 20 at the Ice Cream Factory venue in Perth, around the time Laneway was expected to take place.
West Australian Music chief executive Owen Whittle believes the state’s music industry should develop festivals created directly in Western Australia. Australian Festivals Association executive director Lizzie Butterworth linked the difficulties of holding major festivals in Perth to rising air and freight transport costs, volatile fuel prices, the city’s smaller population and local audiences buying tickets later.
