Earlier this year Vans Warped Tour announced plans to expand into 14 more countries, and now the festival’s head honcho has spoken for the first time about the likelihood of the event returning to Australia.
Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman is staying pretty tightlipped about the possibility of the festival expanding back into Australia, and has told Music Feeds that things are still up in the air.
“I never want to say no, but nothing firm at this point,” he says. “No real plans yet but starting to figure it out. I hope something comes together.”
Warped Tour last hit Australia in 2013, with acts like Parkway Drive, The Used, New Found Glory, The Offspring and The Amity Affliction, but was canned in 2014 and hasn’t taken place in Australia since.
Australia’s former Warped Tour promoter, AJ Maddah (also of Soundwave Festival fame), says that while he’d “love to see Warped back in Australia and would do anything to support it”, he isn’t sure if the festival will be able to return down under anytime soon.
“I am not too optimistic,” Maddah says.
“Looking at the amazing lineup we had in 2013 which did not attract anywhere near the numbers required to break even tells me the market may no longer be there to support it. I’d love to be proven wrong.”
Maddah, who has known Kevin Lyman for almost two decades, says he would definitely help out his mate if Lyman decided to expand Warped Tour back into Australia.
“It is no exaggeration to say I would take a bullet for the guy and very nearly have on a couple of occasions having faced down a drunk Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise or telling a young and angry Unwritten Law they’re kicked off The Warped tour,” Maddah says.
“So if he were to call me, I would be there in flash to do whatever.”
Warped Tour says it’s currently planning new events in Mexico and Japan, and it’s already set to tour the US later this year with a huge lineup featuring the likes of Attila, Bowling For Soup, I Prevail, American Authors and Futuristic.
Last year, AJ Maddah said that he’d support someone with “deep pockets” bringing Warped Tour back to Australia, after his Soundwave Festival cancelled its planned 2016 events.
In 2016, Music Feeds also broke the news that another internationally renowned heavy music event, Download Festival, is planning to make its way to Australia following the indefinite cancellation of Soundwave.
