I’ve been looking at festival lineups for the coming months and I’m bored. Not because the artists are bad—many of them are great—but because it’s the same rotation of acts appearing on every bill.

Festival organizers are playing it safe, booking proven draws instead of taking chances on emerging artists. I get why they’re doing it, but it’s making the festival circuit feel stale.

The Headliner Problem

There are maybe 20-30 acts that can reliably headline Australian festivals. International artists who draw crowds and justify ticket prices. Local acts with enough profile to anchor a day.

The problem is every festival is competing for the same pool of headliners. The result is you see the same names cycling through Splendour, Falls, Laneway, Lost Paradise, Download, all the regional festivals.

If you’ve been to multiple festivals in the last two years, you’ve probably seen overlapping lineups. Not just overlapping—sometimes nearly identical. It’s like festival organizers are all working from the same shortlist.

This isn’t new. Festivals have always shared headliners. But it feels more pronounced recently, maybe because there are fewer truly massive touring acts or because festival budgets are constrained and no one wants to risk an unknown headliner.

The Middle of the Bill

The middle slots—the 4pm to 7pm acts who aren’t headlining but are drawing decent crowds—are where you used to discover new music. Now they’re often filled with artists who’ve been on the circuit for years.

Again, not a criticism of the artists themselves. But if you’re going to festivals to find new sounds, you’re increasingly disappointed. You’re hearing the same sets you could have caught at a pub gig six months ago.

Some festivals do better than this. Laneway has historically booked interesting international indie and electronic acts before they blow up. Golden Plains leans into weird, eclectic bookings that you won’t see at mainstream festivals.

But the big multi-genre festivals tend to play it safe with recognizable names across the whole lineup.

Risk and Economics

Festival economics are brutal right now. Ticket sales have been softer post-pandemic. Production costs have increased. Insurance, security, artist fees—everything costs more.

If you’re a festival organizer, booking an unknown act in a prime slot is genuinely risky. If they don’t draw, you’ve wasted valuable stage time and ticket revenue. Booking a proven act is safer.

But safe is boring. And boring means fewer people want to come back year after year. If every festival has the same vibe and similar lineups, what’s the point of going to multiple festivals?

Genre Segregation

Most large festivals are genre-agnostic—rock, hip-hop, electronic, indie, all on the same lineup. That’s great for variety, but it means programming for the broadest possible audience.

The result is less room for niche acts. If you’re booking for 20,000 people with varied tastes, you can’t afford to put a weird experimental noise act in a prominent slot. You book crowd-pleasers.

Genre-specific festivals have more freedom to take risks. A metal festival can book emerging extreme metal acts because the audience is there for that. An electronic festival can feature underground DJs because people know what they’re signing up for.

Multi-genre festivals serve a purpose, but I’d love to see more mid-sized festivals with tighter musical focus and willingness to book deeper into subgenres.

What Works

Golden Plains is the standout example in Australia. The lineup is always eclectic, always surprising, always worth the trip to Meredith. They don’t chase the biggest names—they book acts they think will create the right vibe.

VIVID’s live music programming takes chances on acts that wouldn’t normally play large Sydney venues. It’s not a traditional festival, but the booking philosophy is more adventurous.

Smaller regional festivals sometimes punch above their weight with interesting bookings because they’re not trying to compete with the major festivals. They know they can’t afford the big headliners, so they focus on creating a distinct identity.

The International Comparison

Look at festivals like Primavera Sound or Glastonbury. Yes, they have big headliners, but they also have dozens of smaller stages featuring emerging artists, niche genres, local scenes. The programming is deep and diverse.

Australian festivals are constrained by smaller budgets and smaller populations, but the principle still applies. More stages, more diverse programming, more willingness to give unknown acts real opportunities.

I’d rather see a festival with one massive headliner and fifty interesting undercard acts than three big headliners and a boring middle tier.

What I Want to See

More curator-driven festivals where someone with actual taste and vision is making programming decisions instead of a committee looking at booking agency rosters and Spotify play counts.

More festivals willing to book regional and touring acts who don’t have major label backing or radio airplay. The best live acts aren’t always the most commercially successful.

Better integration of local scenes. Every Australian city has a music scene with interesting artists who could hold their own on a festival bill if given the chance.

And less reliance on nostalgia bookings. I don’t need to see every ’90s and 2000s band that decides to tour again take up headliner slots when there are current artists doing more interesting work.

The Reality

Festivals are businesses and they need to sell tickets. I understand the pressure to book safe, marketable acts. But in the long run, taking risks creates festival identity and builds loyalty.

The festivals people remember and talk about are the ones with surprising bookings, career-making performances from unknown acts, and distinct personalities. Playing it safe might sell tickets this year, but it doesn’t build lasting cultural value.

Australian festival culture is healthy overall—we have options, we have good venues, we have audiences who show up. But the programming could be braver. The lineups could be less predictable. And we could all benefit from more discovery and fewer guaranteed crowd-pleasers.

Maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy. Or maybe festivals have actually gotten more conservative and less interesting. Probably both.