American festival veteran Andy King, who shot to fame earlier this year for his involvement in the Fyre Festival fiasco, has weighed in on the struggling industry, saying things "can't continue" as they are and that an eco-friendly approach might be the solution to some key problems.
"The music festival industry is broken, and it can't continue being this drug-ridden, wasteful thing," King says. As a space that has suffered such fissures in recent years – particularly in NSW, where concerns over drug deaths, policing and security costs have led to multiple festival closures and cancellations – King, who for years has been an advocate of zero waste events, is selling "sustainability" as a potential salvage.
"I had two brothers [at Woodstock] who gave me a live report on exactly what happened, and I kept thinking: 'No one talks about the cars on the highway, the mud slides, the drug overdoses – no one!' They just say it's the most successful music festival ever," King recalls.