A year after pulling the plug on their festival early after 1975 singer Matty Healy denounced Malaysia's anti-LGBTQ laws as “ridiculous” before sharing a lingering kiss with bassist Ross MacDonald, Kuala Lumpur's Good Vibes festival has announced his return.
The two-day event at Resorts World Awana in Genting Highlands will take place on July 20-21, with Joji and Russ headlining the first night, alongside a line-up featuring Alec Benjamin, Haven, Peach Pit, Ylona Garcia, Cherry Bomb, Spooky Wet. Dreams, bad habits and more.
Day two will be headlined by J Balvin, along with Peggy Gou, Bibi, Henry Moodie, Tiger JK & Yoon Mi Rae, Forceparkbois, Talitha, Capt'n Trips and the Kid and more. tickets for the festival go on sale at 11am on Friday (May 10) here.
Future Sound Asia entertainment director Wan Alman spoke to festival-announces-return-post-1975-turmoil-dates-line-up-tickets-interview-3754003″ target=”_blank”>NME about the event's return, declining to comment on The 1975 due to ongoing legal action against the group while emphasizing that the festival is not banned and will return this year. “To be honest, this year has really been one of the hardest festivals to plan – and not for the reasons you might think. It's not really about what happened last year, but this year has been a particularly challenging time for festivals around the world in general,” Alman said, referring to the cancellation of Australia's Splendor in the Grass and the backlash the lineup sustained. other festivals.
“It was very difficult to get booked for festivals around the world. Not everyone is going to have a great lineup like Coachella or Splendour, and when you don't have a great lineup, people don't buy tickets,” he added. “I think a major reason for this is that artist fees have skyrocketed. I think it's going to be unsustainable, but every year it's getting higher and higher.”
Despite the cancellation of the second and third days of last year's event due to Healy's comments, Alman said the Malaysian government was “quite supportive” of this year's return. “They want to work hand in hand with us to make sure that this doesn't happen again and that the live music industry and the festival industry is not adversely affected by what happened,” he said. The festival is working with local authorities to come up with a standard operating procedure to deal with a similar incident in the future.
And although he said the 1975 dust-up didn't inform their booking choices this year, Allman stressed the decade-long festival took more care this time around to make sure the acts they signed up weren't “controversial.” That said, event organizers do have a “kill switch” they can put in place that immediately shuts off sound, video and stage lighting in the event of another incident, which Allman called “a last resort.”
Check out the full lineup for the Good Vibes 2024 festival below.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/concerts/malaysia-good-vibes-festival-2024-return-lineup-1975-lgbtq-controversy-1235676930/