WA’s High Voltage AC/DC tribute festival powered down after poor showing

WA’s attempt to create an annual AC/DC festival has been shot down in flames, with the Government quietly shelving plans for a repeat event. The High Voltage festival held last year was intended to become a major annual tourism drawcard to Perth when announced by former Premier Mark McGowan. Considered a sequel to the hugely successful Highway to Hell event along Canning Highway in 2020, the High Voltage event last year underwhelmed both attendees and Fremantle businesses. A WA Government spokeswoman confirmed the event would not be renewed. “While we won’t be running High Voltage this year, we’re working with the City of Fremantle on a future event to continue celebrating AC/DC,” she said. “We’ll be delivering other home-grown events that celebrate WA’s culture and community later this year, such as the EverNow and Perth festivals.” High Voltage saw a procession of acts — including blues legend Diesel and Eddie Perfect— on flatbed trucks performing to crowds before doing a lap of Fremantle Oval There were also multiple festival sites with performances from Katy Steele, Dan Sultan and the Southern River Band. But poor weather on the day dampened crowds, with about 40,000 attending, against the 100,000 predicted by then tourism minister Roger Cook. After the event, local bar La Cabana co-owner Madeleine Fay said her South Fremantle venue had barely turned a profit. “Basically, we might as well have been shut. We maybe just turned a profit but probably not even that,” she told The West in May. “We had a very slow day, slower than a normal Sunday. The trucks started at 3pm and we were thinking ‘OK, this is going to attract a lot of people’ at that time but no one came in. “Then we thought ‘OK, once the trucks are done, those people are going to want somewhere to go so we’ll probably get a rush then’. But no, they just followed the trucks and we were left with a deserted street.” Emily Taylor and Sailing for Oranges director of hospitality Tim Buckton said venues in the heart of Fremantle also faced a similar problem with trade proving to be “slightly slower than a normal Sunday” and crowds disappearing early into the evening. “There were clearly more people around on the streets, but not spending money,” Mr Buckton said. Mr Cook, who attended the event with then premier Mark McGowan and other ministers, recognised afterwards the date would need to be changed. “This is part of an annual festival that we want to make truly Western Australian,” he said after the average attendance. “I think we’ll probably bring it forward on the calendar to make sure that it lands at a time of the year when we’ve got a better chance of getting better weather. On social media, punters expressed disappointment, one claiming the late AC/DC frontman and Fremantle’s own Bon Scott would be “rolling in his grave”. Facebook user Shane Christian Ross wrote: “The event was (a) flop because the people running it have zero heart and soul for anything AC/DC.”