Too many bands on the bill each year means short set times, a higher churn of bands (seeing the same bands every 2/3rd year), a lot more stages (ups the cost), and too many clashes. Also having 70odd bands means a massive amount of cost in band fees and travel/accomodation/food/piss)These are the problems IMO that has turned a lot of people off SW and why he isn't making enough coin off it.
4 stages-
main
Alternate/emo/teen shit
Punk
Metal
Have 6-7 bands per stage, allowing each 1.5hours to play and the headliner 2-2.5hours at the end. He would have been able to drip feed us the bands slowly over a few years, keep his costs down and avoid a barrage of clashes every year. I get why he tried the 2 day thing this year, props to him for giving it a crack but it failed imo as everyone was wrecked by midway day 2. Shame if this folds, i can't make next years due to work commitments but I wouldn't have gone unless there were a few more decent bands added to the bill. Disturbed is one of my most hated bands of all time, considering them to be a headliner when he's had metallica, iron maiden, slipknot in the past is a f**king insult imo to the people that support the fesitval.
Some points
- 40-60 min sets is a good time except for the top 2 slots imo. 30 mins too short for anything, 90 mins too long for a festival. This kind of arena you want decent quantity.
- Same bands every 2 yrs = AJs fault. He had a pretty limited taste and within that half of them wont deal with him, there were literally hundreds of good metal bands he never had on, presumably the same for other genres.
- 2 days was a disaster for the sole reason that he had less bands than the year before in double the time. Any good festival has clashes and time constraints. He listened to stupid complaints and over-reached. No clashes means not enough worth seeing. Festivals need QUANTITY to sell tickets - look at any Euro festival. This is why it peaked 2011-2013, not just coz of headliners.
People think they want no clashes and long sets but it simply isn't possible to appeal to the same range with a smaller lineup. Longer sets mean the people that attend are maybe slightly happier but overall less people will attend coz the lineup attracts less people.
- This year he obviously can't afford a big lineup or good headliners due to last years losses. He's shafted half his fanbase - the metal fans who just a few short years ago made up a huge part of the crowd due to Maiden, Metallica, and countless smaller but still awesome bands.
He blames the dollar, the government, Adelaide and Perth, whinging fans, everything except himself. He made this mess by miscalculating what people really want, overestimating his own ability and influence, and pissing off both fans and bands.
