Froth & Fury festival is quickly becoming one of the biggest alternative music festivals in the country.
At its core, it combines a strong love for craft beer with a day of back to back metal, punk and hardcore. Originally it was only a South Australian event beginning in 2021 and has since been held annually in November. It has now moved to January 2026, expanded to the Adelaide Showground and will be making its debut in the west at Perth HPC.
The upcoming event marks the fifth festival held in Adelaide with attendance growing every year and three out of four years selling out.
The expansion of the event has also seen the lineup grow. It's their biggest offering to date featuring headliners Polaris accompanied by Soulfly, In Hearts Wake, and Lagwagon at the top of the card plus over 40 international, Australian and local heavyweights across the two dates.
High Risk, High Reward
On paper, starting a festival during a pandemic and only catering to the notoriously skipped over state sounds like a recipe for failure. However, Froth & Fury have defied the odds and has found success by doing the opposite of other festivals and taking a gamble on the often forgotten Adelaide.
Which begs the question, why would they take such a big risk again?
“Because we're crazy?” laughs co-founder Anita Decoster when The Music catches up with her at local Adelaide venue The Ed Castle.
“We like a challenge, but in all honesty, I think people in South Australia and Western Australians have something really in common. Which is, we always miss out on shows. So I've spent thousands of dollars going to the east to see bands, like thousands. It's just ridiculous.
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"When my money's been low, I popped in the car and I drove to Melbourne to see bands. The reason why we [expanded to Perth] was to bring something to people in Western Australia that they want as much as we want.
“There's a point in any business where you need to take a risk and we were at that point of growth," she continues. "I actually believe going to the Adelaide Showground is the best risk for Adelaide because it’s more central, easily accessible, lots of room for growth.
“So that's a no-brainer we can design it so it's still got a vibe in a smaller space, but if we want to keep growing it, we've got that space. But taking on Perth, our dear friend, Brad Wesson from Soundworks Touring actually wanted to look at doing a festival.
"So we've partnered with him to deliver the festival so that way, we've got an extra body over there. He wants to do it anyway and from a business perspective, it's great for us because that means we've got two cities covered for our headlining bands, so we can share the risks together.
"Then we've just got to find a couple shows over in the east [for bands on the lineup]. So, it actually helps us get bigger bands, which helps the growth as well.”
You’d imagine a festival this size is run by a large team of people, but Froth & Fury is a DIY operation that was started using the core team’s own personal savings. This includes Adelaide co-founder Jason North and marketer Cassi Rogers-Altman.
Each year they’ve been reinvesting this money instead of making much of a personal profit and working on the festival between their nine-to-five jobs.
Inspired By The Big Day Out
Upgrading to the Adelaide Showground – the former home of the dearly-missed Big Day Out – and changing the date of the festival from November to January is a different strategy for Adelaide this year.
The date change was also in part to make sure they weren't competing with two of the biggest metal and hard rock bands in the world, Metallica and AC/DC who were both touring nationally in November.
“Nothing was really happening in January and we are the hugest Big Day Out fans too and I miss that festival so much and I loved it being in January too because it's like stinking hot, you sink lots of beers, see awesome bands," Decoster explains. "There's something about a summer festival.
"During November, I think it was the third year that it came down so hard with rain. Like it was unbelievably epic that year, the wind was a bit high too and I had the front of house tents almost go up. So I had like six of like just randoms [people] in the crowd holding down the front of house marquees while I'm just strapping the shit out of them to stop them from flying away.
“So the weather was definitely something that played into moving it," she adds. "I think we wanted to align with summer, like more of a summer festival and the old big day out dates were free so decided to take those.”
Another different aspect of Froth & Fury is that each city has a unique lineup. Although the larger artists on the lineup are remaining relatively the same, there are a number of festival exclusives for each state such as Comeback Kid, Blood Duster, and BIG NOTER only performing in Adelaide while Fit For An Autopsy, Voyager and Nicolas Cage Fighter perform in Perth.
It’s making each city feel like a standalone event.
“Perth's got its own vibe and then Adelaide’s got its own vibe," Decoster notes. "We're really hoping that people want to go to both of them and there's quite a few people that are going to both of them. A few people that I know are travelling from the East to go to Adelaide, then they're going back and then they're going to Perth, which is crazy.
“Then there's all the locals, all of the locals are different. I mean, there's one or two that we're sharing. But, you know, it's about having the opportunity to showcase those locals too in each state. Have the local fans represent them as well.
“I think branching into Perth, it sounds counterproductive compared to every other festival, it's very different like everyone skips Adelaide and Perth because I feel like I don't know if they feel like there's not enough of a scene here," she adds. "You know it's expensive, Perth is expensive to build, it's so expensive over there to build. I've learnt that real fast.
“However, there’s some passionate people out there that want to see these shows so we're okay to grow sustainably. So we're not into throwing a show that's going to be 5,000 straight up over in Perth. It's always going to be a couple of thousand. We always know that, it's going to be somewhere between three to five thousand, hopefully around that.
"We know that it's going to be a bit smaller for the first one and then if everyone's into it and they're into the vibe and it continues to grow from there. That's the same for Adelaide, too. I'm not gunning for, you know, a 10,000 person show for next year, a sustainable growth model is really important.”
What Does The Future Hold?
In five years Froth & Fury has gone from a small event during the pandemic with only 23 local bands to a multi-city major event. So if this momentum continues, where will Froth & Fury be in the next five years?
“Everyone asks us, "When are you going to the east?' Every time I've talked about this festival" Decoster explains. "Look I don't think we're going to go to the east, like, anytime soon. I’d like to see Perth and Adelaide grow as far as we can push it before we even consider going over to the east.
"Also, keeping in mind the ethos of the festival. Our states have always missed out on every show. So the whole point of doing the festival is to bring the locals something that they've missed out on.
“The kids that never got to go to Soundwave and Big Day Out we're trying to bring that to them. We also want the easterners to come down to our states and to feel what it's like to have to travel to see something too," she adds. "That's important, and South Australia and West Australia are awesome places to visit from a tourism level.”
Froth & Fury were recently the recipients of a Revive Live grant from the Australian Government. Decoster explains that at a time when working in events is more expensive and difficult than ever they’re “so grateful” to get this support.
It enables them to keep Froth & Fury prices accessible, give more to the bands and helps them reinvest next year and make it bigger. In the background of 2026 they’re already laying the groundwork for 2027.
“We're definitely aiming high for our headliner for next year," Decoster teases. "We're having a chat to a band at the moment and fingers crossed if we can land that one, it's going to be a very exciting year next year.
"We aim for some growth when it comes to our programming but with a strong Australian lineup as well.
“We're talking numbers at the moment," she concludes. "2027 is happening. I don't know about Perth yet, dates will be similar to last year. We need to wait to see if Perth is successful to see whether or not we can do 2027 over there. But Adelaide's definitely happening for sure.”
Froth & Fury takes place in Adelaide on January 24th and in Perth on January 31st. Tickets to both events are on sale now.
Froth & Fury 2026
Polaris
Soulfly
In Hearts Wake
Nailbomb
Lagwagon
Abbath (Doom Occulta Immortal Set)
Ocean Sleeper
Frenzal Rhomb
Archspire
Comeback Kid (Wake The Dead Set)
Aborted
Gridiron*
Private Function
Terminal Sleep
Zuko
Perth Only
Fit For An Autopsy
Voyager
Bodysnatcher
Abramelin
Freedom Of Fear
Valhalore
Silent Knight
Nicolas Cage Fighter
All This Filth
Iniquitous Monolith
Patient Sixty-Seven
Yomi Ship
Pincer+
Rat King
Crosscheck
Adelaide Only
Comeback Kid (Wake The Dead Set)
Blood Duster
Snot
Bleeding Through
BIG NOTER
Gridiron
Mortal Sin
Where's The Pope
Battlesnake
Double Dragon
Diesect
The Bearded Clams
Flangipanis
I Choose Violence
Bone Reaper
Rockys Pride & Joy
Broken Loose
Control The Sun
Saturday, January 24th, 2026 – Perth HPC, Mount Claremont, WA
Saturday, January 31st, 2026 – Adelaide Showgrounds, Wayville, SA
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
