WHY AUSSIES CONTINUE TO FLOCK TO EUROPEAN FESTIVALS.

Written by Shane Price

Does it seem lately that every time you go on Facebook around June - July there is always that prick who’s boasting about going to European festivals? Yep, that’s me.

But what lead us here? Cast your mind back to 2008…

In Adelaide, there was always an abundance of music festivals throughout the years. Even on a quiet year, we had numerous events to attend such as We Love Sounds, Parklife, Future Music, Stereosonics, Summerdayze, Groove in the moo and many more. It seemed every other weekend in summer we had a music festival we could attend with huge line ups.

We had our freedom to go out and get day drunk dancing in parks. However something changed, peoples option of festivals and their patrons had a massive downturn and slowly but surely over the last ten years, they have dwindled away to nothing.

My first ever festival was Parklife, I had no clue what to expect. I remember looking around during Peaches & Diplo and thinking “what have I been missing out on” from that moment I was hooked! From then on, I didn’t miss a single festival, the feeling, the freedom to be the true you, to dance how you want to music you loved with thousands of others all there for the same thing was amazing and I was addicted to it!

Along comes, October 2012, myself plus a shit ton of others have just seen a video on Youtube,

“Tomorrowland 2012 Aftermovie.”

At this point I thought, this couldn’t be real, what is this, the scale of this festival is beyond anything we’ve seen. 1 month later Europe tickets were booked and we were on our way. It seems every year since then that Aussie are absolutely dominating the attendance at Tomorrowland and other major festivals all across Europe.

One crazy fact is that since 2016 Australians have been the highest ticket buyers over every other country in the world for Tomorrowland! We are the furthest from Belgium, but we make the biggest impact. To put that in perspective there are more countries represented at Tomorrowland than the Olympics and Aussies crush them all.

It all leads to a question. why?

Is it the fact that the government wants to shut down festivals; Media in Australia only appears to be highlighting things such as drug overdoses, drink spiking and violence in relation to festivals. Is it the fact that Australian festivals are a mixture of amateur bodybuilding events, Instagram “influences” and a competition to see who can get “the most fucked up.”

It feels as if the heart and soul has just fallen out of the scene and the real reasons why we should be going to festivals has been lost.

European countries adopt a festival and actually do it with nothing but love in their heart, this alone should be enough to make us travel but there is so much more. The town of Boom in Belgium has taken on Tomorrowland now for 15 years, completely shutting down the city for 2 weeks with 300,000 festival goer invading their city.

You walk to the shops and you are welcomed by the locals, have a beer with them never to made to feel out of place. Szigetfest in Budapest which has been going for 27 years goes for a staggering 7 days straight, runs from 12:00 pm to 8:00 am. The city has a flag made just for the event, the local sell shirts and merchandise in the city, the bars and restaurants are pumping, city is just alive!

Its apart of their culture, festival-goers aren’t made to feel out of place or that we are less than decent.

You can literally book a month long holiday in Europe in the summer without checking any dates and still be able to go to multiple events throughout, its jam-packed with the goods.

When you arrive at a festival and you can feel the overwhelming sensation that not only the festival goers but the whole community wants this spectacle to happen, they embrace you as one of their own.

It all just works and to be honest there is no feeling like it.

I have never felt anything quite like the feeling of a European festival. I would have done over 30 days of festivals in Europe. Not once have I ever seen a fight, seen people be mean or honestly had a bad time. There were people from over 75 countries at these festivals and even between social diversity, the language barrier and different religious view, we were all there for the same reason.

THE LOVE OF MUSIC AND THAT TRANSCENDS ALL!

In my personal view, the absolute feeling of togetherness and how you are welcomed cannot be replicated in Australia at this current point. With the restrictions we have such as noise, time, light and anything else the government can come up with. Coupled with the public view of festival patrons does not provide a welcoming environment for these massive events.

I would love to see more European festival organisers bringing their events down under after the success of Ultra maybe they will. However, if I am completely honest I am not sure we are ready. I am not sure if the government is ready to adopt a view of inclusiveness and the general population are ready to view festival goers as real people.

I can always dream.