Warped Tour Australia Blames WA Government For Perth Exclusion

The lineup for the super anticipated Warped Tour Australia 2013 tour is now just days away, which is great news for just about all Australians bar those living in Perth, who won’t be getting a Warped show in 2013. In a recent interview, organiser AJ Maddah has explained that this is not just the result of a poor track record for live alternative music in the city but also hampered by state government regulations.

It would appear that Maddah has learned from previous experiences with putting on shows in the city. Speaking to TheMusic.com.au, he said that even big name bands often fail to draw in the numbers:

“To be quite frank, the past few years, Perth hasn’t been particularly kind to punk bands or to punk events… I had a bill of Panic! At The Disco, All Time Low, Yellowcard and somebody else [at Counter Revolution mini festival] that couldn’t sell 1000 tickets in Perth.”

Maddah went as far as to say that, due to regulations concerned with all-ages shows, the state government have robbed a generation of the chance to enjoy quality music:

“State laws have made it just about impossible to do all-ages shows, and what’s that done exactly is that a whole couple of generations of kids have missed out on going to shows when they’re young [and] therefore have grown up being into shit music, quite frankly, in terms of what’s on at 94.5 and various other stations in Perth.

“Perth is great for P!nk and what have you, but it’s not so good for punk rock.”

The logistics of pulling off a Perth show proved too pricey for the risk of no-one turning up. With all artists driving between cities in classic Warped Tour style, he said the leg to WA would be a bit too much:

“It’s just the fact that we would need to have x number of days off going there and x numbers of days off coming back. It means we would have to try and extend the tour to get there on a weekend date, and it just didn’t add up.

“With the expense and the time it would take out of every band’s itinerary we decided not to do Perth this year, but if we find that the support is there, we’ll consider it for next year.”

Maddah is working with Warped founder Kevin Lyman for the festival which will kickstart late November. As mentioned above the line up drops on Wednesday, so it’s almost time to see how close we got it.

(Via TheMusic.com.au)

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