Gudinski’s Mushroom Sees ‘Future’ In The Festival Market

Michael Gudinski's Mushroom Group and its promotions company Frontier Touring have today entered the festival market through a partnership with the Future Music Festival, which will see the independent music giant coming on board to promote the festival.

The move marks a major investment of resources by Mushroom into the festival market, and exhibits a confidence in the viability of the sector.

Today Mushroom Group's Matt Gudinski confirmed to theMusic.com.au that the joint venture will sit within the Mushroom Group and carry the group's branding.

“The new alliance is a joint venture with their existing key team,” he said. “There'll be a major integration of key resources.”

The son of Chairman Michael, Matt took a more public role in the group this year and said today that they'd long been looking to add a festival interest to the group's stable of companies.

“Obviously with the success of festivals in Australia in the last ten years we've always been looking at ways to get into festivals and spoken to a number of people. It's been about waiting for the right opportunity… With their heavy EDM focus, which is the world's fastest growing genre, we were looking to enter that part of the industry.”

With the announcement of the bill for 2014's festival just weeks away, he confirmed that Mushroom have had “a major hand in the line-up” and they would continue to court the cross-over market of both EDM DJs and live indie and rock artists.

Today's announcement claimed that Future was the largest “100 percent Australian-owned and operated major touring festival".

“Whilst FMF has expanded from its roots as an EDM-heavy event into one of the most diverse music festivals in the region, the relationship will continue to amplify this diversification through access to Mushroom's well-established resources and experience.”

Today the Mushroom Group's Chairman Michael Gudinski said, “Our involvement with the festivals will fill a gap within the Mushroom Group that has existed to date. Future Music Festival was an early pioneer of the EDM genre and I believe our combined forces can take the festival to new heights, with an even greater focus on the fan experience and the addition of some exciting new innovations.”

The Future Music Festival's Director Brett Robinson added, in a statement, “With the confidence of a brand new alliance [with] the Mushroom Group, Future Music Festival is poised for its biggest ever season. The strength of the relationship will become apparent when we announce our 2014 line-up in a few weeks time.”

The Future Music Festival line-up will be announced mid-September, with the Asian leg – now a three day format – later the same month. The under 18s Good Life event will expand to Brisbane and Perth events in 2014, with that announcement due in the “coming months”

The Future Music Festival 2014 dates are as follows:                                                       

Saturday 1 March – Brisbane
Sunday 2 March – Perth
Saturday 8 March – Sydney
Sunday 9 March – Melbourne
Monday 10 Mach – Adelaide

The under 18 Good Life Festival returns, visiting:

Friday 28 February – Brisbane
Monday 3 March – Perth
Friday 7 March – Melbourne
Sunday 9 March – Sydney

The festival will visit Kuala Lumpur Thursday 13 – Saturday 15 March.