If you’ve been near a computer, newspaper or even radio today, you may have noticed the publication of one of the numerous, uniformly scathing reviews of hip-hop festival Heatwave. But if this is the first time you’ve heard of Heatwave, don’t worry – it was only after the festival crashed, burned and sent its fuselage spraying onto every corner of the internet that it made any sort of a splash. One reviewer even went so far as to claim “This festival was worse than any other failed festival in the history of Australian music”. This begs the question: what went so very wrong with Heatwave?

From the get-go, Heatwave’s chances for success seemed slim. After announcing the lineup only 37 days prior to the festival kicking off and booking venues that FasterLouder kindly described as “wildly ambitious”, ticket sales were unsurprisingly slow. As FL also sagely pointed out, “The notion that there weren’t hordes of punters clambering to grab the XXL VIP tickets for the event in Canberra, which offered access to the backstage after party, free snacks and “a special ride on the pimped out HeatWave promo tour bus” for a lazy $615.60 is simply outrageous.”

But the real trouble began as the festival drew nearer. First up, headliners D12 missed their flight to Australia and thus, their shows in Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney. The Perth event was cancelled altogether, while in Canberra, only 500 people were said to turn up. At the particularly-disastrous Melbourne event, the promoters failed to secure a liquor licence, Chamillionare was a no-show and Kid Cudi’s set was cut short after 20 minutes (instead of the allotted hour), in response to which the rapper trashed the stage while bouncers tried to grab him.

At this point, the inthemix reviewer for the Melbourne event wrote “Predictably, the crowd got ugly, throwing bottles onstage and kicking chairs and bins as some even started crying, coming to terms with having spent up to $150 to be lied to, short-changed and even denied the small comfort of a stiff drink to take the edge off.”

Our reviewer (in a truly delightfully written piece) also quipped “The only thing the crowd found mildly entertaining that whole afternoon was when Obie Trice got everybody to flip the bird with both hands and wave their arms around to the beat, which felt sort of satisfying if you closed your eyes and imagined you were looking right at the festival organisers while you were doing it.”

In response to the festival’s poor execution, several Facebook groups, including People Who Were Screwed Over By The Douches Who Organised HeatWave, HeatWave = Biggest Music Festival Failure ever and HeatWave Biggest Fck Up Of 2012 have sprung up, with many attendees demanding refunds.

The only statement from the Heatwave promoters (who also appear to have deleted any negative comments on their Facebook page), posted “Despite a few media sites who have been riding us since day 1 and focusing only on the negative parts not the bulk of the festival which has been great! We know thousands of you had a GREAT time at a very affordable price. The team has worked hard under some very hard situations to bring you this show… things will only get bigger better and more affordable in the future.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the festival’s promoters will make good on their promise of the event’s return – but given not even an endorsement from Jaydos could save Heatwave, it seems unlikely.

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