what Australia’s music festivals are thinking about in an era of climate change

Cancellations of music festivals due to climate-related events have increased dramatically in the last five years. The Black Summer 2019-20 bushfires drove away Falls Festival (Lorne, Victoria), Lost Paradise (Glenworth, New South Wales) and Yours & Owls (Wollongong, NSW). Floods throughout 2022 held up Strawberry Fields (Tocumwal, NSW), This That (Newcastle, NSW) and Vanfest (Bathurst, NSW). Dozens of other Australian festivals have also been affected.

Festivals are also having to manage extreme weather impacts during events that have already begun. This was seen most recently at Pitch Festival in Victoria in March, where extreme heat and bushfire threats meant the festival had to be cancelled and audiences evacuated from the regional site.

In conjunction with Green Music Australia and the Australian Festival Association, we recently ran a roundtable to find out how the climate emergency is impacting events, and what is needed to adapt. The 41 attendees included festival organisers as well as representatives of industry bodies and government.

How are festivals at risk from climate impacts?

The factors already making festivals difficult to stage will worsen under climate change.

Participants mentioned numerous related risks. Reliably and affordably securing essentials, such as food, will become more difficult if supply chains are disrupted by extreme events, including climatic disruptions far from festival sites.

Costs might increase as new measures such as temporary shading are required.

Insurance premiums are becoming more expensive and, in some cases, won’t cover festivals for risks such as bushfire-related cancellations, according to our participants.

Festival staff are likely to face additional pressures in planning and staging events, in a sector already reporting skills shortages.

Audience behaviour is also changing. Some we spoke to believe this is partially due to the potential risk of extreme weather.

Increasingly, punters are buying tickets closer to the day, which makes it harder for festival organisers to meet pre-event costs and prepare for audience turnouts. Industry representatives expect this trend to deepen as punters become more aware of the increased likelihood of extreme weather, leading to more people not deciding to attend until the last moment, when the forecast is a known entity.

What can festivals do to adapt?

Workshop participants are beginning to think about and implement various strategies to adapt to climate change.

Festivals need to ensure there is effective planning in place for extreme events.

This could include having multiple contingency plans for all aspects of the event, such as back-up locations, and clear evacuation plans. This requires flexible and effective leadership, and clear communication and collaboration with government and emergency services.

Industry representatives indicated they are beginning to question some assumptions about festivals, such as where and when they are held.

The current festival season in Australia lasts from spring to autumn. As days of extreme heat increase, summer festivals will become less safe for audiences, performers, festival vendors and suppliers.

If summer festivals move to spring and autumn, festivals will face increased competition for audiences. And this may lead to more difficulty attracting high-profile international artists, who find the Australian summer attractive as touring is less active across the northern winter.

Relocating festivals currently held in locations at higher risk of adverse events introduces major complications, especially for those whose identity is strongly place-based.

One adaptation strategy suggested at the roundtable to address various climate change risks is the creation of more purpose-built sites for use by multiple festivals.

If carefully located and designed, this could provide safe sites with more robust services and resources including clean water, sufficient shade, reliable power and communication infrastructure.

Festivals could potentially reuse resources, such as crockery and signage, reducing supply chain dependencies and waste.

For such an approach to work, festivals would need to effectively differentiate themselves. This would be a significant challenge, but easier than the alternative of repeated festival cancellations.

Festivals also need to work to reduce the environmental impacts of festivals. Participants talked about how building trust in the communities connected to their events was important. Showing they were doing the right thing in terms of the environment was key to maintaining this relationship.

Cascading risks

The festival stakeholders at our roundtable clearly understand the complexity of the climate change challenges they are facing, including their vulnerability to “cascading and compounding risks”.

Simple solutions do not exist. All responses need to be carefully assessed and designed to avoid generating new problems and to find benefits across the sector.

Most evident was a sense that much more work is needed across all areas of festival organisation to understand and adapt to the significant climate impacts already here, and those potentially coming down the line.