ARENA Joondalup is busy preparing to host its second music festival in two months when Australia’s largest urban festival hits Perth on Sunday, April 22.
Although it was announced earlier this week that P Diddy and Missy Elliott are no longer on the bill for Supafest, the event will still bring such superstars as Chris Brown, T Pain, Ice Cube and Kelly Rowland to the northern suburbs.
Supafest co-director John Denison said they chose to have the event at Arena Joondalup again because Future Music Festival had been so successful and the venue had a nice ambient experience.
“People enjoy going there and we hope it will be a positive experience because the event allows us to reach out to a broader area that doesn’t get as many events, and to promote music in the region,” he said.
VenuesWest chairman Graham Partridge said Perth was changing in terms of its festivals, and more regional choices made sense.
“There are more than 300,000 people in the direct catchment of Arena Joondalup,” he said.
“We are seeing more and more people in the northern suburbs happy that their kids can attend music events without a 20km journey.”
Mr Denison said Supafest had addressed last year’s time over-run issue and would allow for a 20-minute buffer after Chris Brown’s performance.
He said the festival would be different to others as it had one stage and the acts would play back-to-back.
“People should get there as early as possible – every act from top to bottom is a headliner in its own right,” he said.
“Chris Brown is phenomenal, one of the best acts in the world – he’s the modern day Michael Jackson and he’s very relevant at the moment.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Denison and co-director Dwayne Cross said ticket sales were less than expected and their budget could not sustain the cost of keeping P Diddy and Missy Elliott on the bill.
“We made the early decision to extend our budget for our event this year to try and make it bigger and better and were hoping for a greater response.
“Notwithstanding this outcome, we are thankful that the event will draw a larger audience than last year but not sufficient enough to justify our additional investment, so a very hard decision had to be made for the survival of the event in future years.”
Tickets are still available for the all-ages event from supafest.com.au, and include free travel on all Transperth services.