The weekend just gone saw summer juggernaut Big Day Out make its final stops of 2012 in Adelaide and Perth, rounding out a much-discussed tour. The festival has already announced that this year will be New Zealand’s last Big Day Out, and there had been concerns that the scaled-back line-up and staging for the shows in Perth and Adelaide this year indicated that punters would have to head to the East Coast for next year’s festivals. However, as reported by FasterLouder, Adelaide looks to be in the clear for 2013, with similar hopes for the Perth leg.

What’s certain, however, is that attendance suffered at the final two shows, which both lost Kanye West as headliner. According to the post-event summaries on the Big Day Out website, Perth and Adelaide pulled 12,000 punters. The crowd sizes at the East Coast stops were also down on previous years. Despite the drop in numbers, the Boiler Room line-up served up plenty of standout moments around the country, from Lupe Fiasco joining Bassnectar on stage in Melbourne to the long-awaited charms of Royksopp to Nero’s towering stage show.

As for the festival in 2013, ringleader Ken West told FasterLouder a couple of months back: “It will be very good”.

Big Day Out attendance numbers:

Auckland:
2012 – 20,000
2011 – 40,000

Gold Coast:
2012 – 40,000+
2011 – 50,000 (Sold Out)

Sydney:
2012 – 47,000
2011 – 55,000 + a second day with 19,000 tickets sold before the ‘bring a friend’ offer

Melbourne:
2012 – 42,000
2011 – 52,000 (Sold Out)

Adelaide:
2012 – 12,000
2011 – 30000+

Perth:
2012 – 12,000
2011 – 35,000