No, this is not some cruel post-April Fool's Day joke -- this is the real thing. Late last night, April 1, or this afternoon, April 2, for our Australian friends, Mushroom Group's largest festival Future Music Festival announced that it was canceling the long-standing dance music event. In a short Facebook post, the festival made the announcement reasoning that continuing the event "simply doesn't make financial sense anymore." The event, headlined by the likes of Drake, Avicii, 2 Chainz and The Prodigy, has called it quits after 10 years.
"We're very sad to say that we've decided 2015 was the last year for Future Music Festival," wrote the event on its Facebook page. "It's been a difficult decision to make but in the end travelling the festival in its current form across Australia simply doesn't make financial sense anymore."
In a press release, the Mushroom Group offered a more detailed explanation as to why it canceled the event. It reasoned it was due to poor ticket sales and offered some chilling industry-held beliefs about festivals like it.
"Mushroom Group share the belief expressed by a number of promoters globally that the day of the large scale travelling festival in its current form is unfortunately numbered," it wrote via the Herald Sun.
According to the same release, organizers are planning to roll out "an exciting new festival concept in the coming months," which would join their current roster of events that include Day on the Green Festival, Sugar Mountain and Future's U-18 event Good Life.
The Australian festival market has long peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s with other popular events like Parklife and Big Day Out all hitting the scrap heap as well in the past few years.
This is not the end of the world, however. There are rumors of expansion by other international festival brands like Insomniac, which is fighting a legal battle over its "Electric Daisy Carnival" name in Australia at the moment, which could indicate a move at some point down under.
