16/06/2025
It's been a couple of days since Nowhere Festival 2025 and we need to address a few things.
First of all, thank you.
To everyone who came out, to our sponsors S C H E M A collective Blackened Records Wylde Seidr and 2 Two Dudes Talk Music, and to all the volunteers who ran stages, worked the door, helped us set up and pack down, and generally made sure the event went ahead. To both our sound engineers, doing a difficult job in less than ideal conditions; and to Valley of Death on 4ZZZ for giving air time to as many of our bands as you did.
In the end this is an event run by the community, for the community. We're passionate about Australian heavy music and we want to be passionate about it as well. We're incredibly grateful for all of the messages of support we've received over the last 24hrs, you guys are why we do this.
I do need to acknowledge however that this years event did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves.
As the promoter in the end the blame for that falls on me, and I am deeply sorry to everyone who did not have the day we wanted you to have.
The change in complexity from running out of venues with in-house sound and lighting to needing to provide and run our own was greater than we expected, and this caused delays and other issues throughout the day.
This was compounded by noise complaints from nearby residents requiring us to reduce the volume levels on both stages throughout the day to avoid the event being shut down by police.
The noise restrictions were not communicated by the venue in the lead up to the event and both sound engineers did what we felt we needed to do to keep the event running.
The lack of food on the day also caught us completely by surprise, as we had been shown the menu the venue had been put together the day before the event and had been promised repeatedly in the lead up that the kitchen would be open and food available through the day.
The choices available to us in venues were limited when our original site became unavailable due to renovations, however it became very clear on Saturday that Amore - while a fantastic event space - is not suitable for this type of event and we will not be holding the festival there in future.
We started late. We ran late. We had to reduce sets and we were still unable to have Antonamasia play.
This was unacceptable; and changes are being made within Nowhere to ensure this does not happen again.
Your complaints are being heard and taken very seriously, and I would like to thank you all for letting us know the ways that we need to do better.
Given everything that has happened both in the lead up to this event and on the day itself we are very seriously reconsidering whether we will continue to run the festival in future years and if we do, what that event will look like.
