The Big Day Out has undergone another radical ownership change and is now operated entirely by American company C3 Presents.
A Music Feeds exclusive report on Wednesday revealed promoter and director AJ Maddah was no longer with the festival and has transferred his stake in the Big Day Out over to C3 Presents LLC.
The outspoken Maddah joined the Big Day Out team in September last year as a co-investor with a reported equal interest in the festival after receiving fellow promoter Ken West’s stake in the company.
“(It is) about time I let a new generation help continue the BDO evolution.” West explained to Fairfax at the time. “In short AJ is joining the BDO circus and I am staying. So the BDO team will now be C3, AJ Maddah and yours truly.”
According to Music Feeds, Maddah’s share stake has now been transferred to the Texan-based event promotion and production company.
Big Day Out’s financial troubles have been well documented in recent months. The festival posted big financial losses in the range of $8-$15 million after last January on the back allegedly falsified attendance figures.
“We still don’t know…but it’s going to be ugly” Maddah told Triple J in February when quizzed about official losses, himself unsure of how the festival’s less than memorable 2014 had influenced BDO’s reputation in Australia.
The festival also dropped Perth from its lineup going forward, unable to sustain the “unbearable” travel expenses after drawing weak crowds.
Maddah hasn’t been shy about vocalising his role in BDO’s revival attempt heading into last summer, telling Triple J “It wasn’t gonna go ahead this year until I walked in… I was rowing the lifeboat back to the Titanic.”
“To be blunt about it, up until I got involved, the original promoters of the Big Day Out are basically old aged pensioners at this point, and they overestimated some of these bands,” Maddah said of the 2014 lineup which originally included headliners Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire and Blur.
Maddah, BDO CEO Adam Zammit and C3 Presents have yet to comment on the report.
