Harvest Festival hasn't been officially cancelled yet, but AJ Maddah is already talking like it's a done deal.
"At this point it looks like it will disassociate into several tours," Maddah told Fairfax, though he added that the final decision about the struggling festival hasn't been made.
"I'm devastated, we got Massive Attack and we'd dragged Elizabeth Fraser out... And we had a good second lineup announcement [to come]."
With a degree of candour that would be unusual for another tour promoter, but is fairly standard for Maddah, he revealed that low ticket sales for the Brisbane ("18 per cent" of 17,500 tickets sold) and Sydney ("30-40 per cent" of 20,000) legs of the tour left him facing a loss of up to $5.5 million.
Maddah is now hoping to tour the headline acts as separate shows, even though it will still result in personal losses "into seven figures". If the festival is cancelled, Harvest tickerholders will be refunded.
"Maybe Harvest will be back some day," Maddah said, suggesting this year's cancellation is a fait accompli. "Pretty fucking unlikely though. It's been a labour of love but we have a couple of great years to remember."
