Harvest Cancelled After Historic Big Day Out Deal

The Harvest festival has been officially cancelled as the Australian festival market undergoes one of its biggest upheavals in the past decade.

Harvest promoter AJ Maddah made the announcement on his Twitter account, just hours after news broke that he'd acquired Ken West's stake in Big Day Out. Amid the rumours, theMusic.com.au understands that his acquisition is a “done deal”.

“I am very sad to confirm that Harvest 2013 is cancelled,” he said. “All tickets will be 100 percent refunded (including all charges) by Oztix in the next week.”

He added, “[We] will be announcing headline shows by most of the harvest artists in the next ten days. Those who purchased harvest tickets will be given priority access to these headline shows. Please stay tuned for details.”

He said that the recent Volcano Choir leak has garnered much media coverage, but that didn't translate to ticket sales. Earlier Maddah had claimed that Big Day Out's line-up was eating into his festival's tickets.

“We were all set til Volcano Choir announced early to much fanfare and media attention,” he told a social media user. “We sold 33 tickets that day. And that was the point where I lost all my confidence and put everything including second announcement on hold.”

He continued, “I didn't want harvest to end up being one of those festivals that leaves creditors in its wake and destroys suppliers. As it stands, it is wiping out a lot of our life savings but at least we'll be able to pay all of the bills.

“Obviously I did a poor job of booking the festival and I should be the only one to be punished for it.”

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – who broke the news yesterday – and Neutral Milk Hotel are believed to be amongst the bands that will embark on headline tours.