--- title: Top of the Hill Music Festival Attracts Only 50 People description: The lesson? Always sell booze canonical: https://time.com/58038/cue-the-sad-violins-only-50-people-showed-up-to-this-music-festival/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-11T12:00:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:42.528Z og:title: Cue the Sad Violins: Only 50 People Showed Up to This Music Festival og:description: The lesson? Always sell booze og:url: https://time.com/58038/cue-the-sad-violins-only-50-people-showed-up-to-this-music-festival/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt97c1cdca8ac31f57/698688bdcd804d0ffbcca174/452413593.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3866 og:image:height: 2175 og:image:alt: Crying baby og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Cue the Sad Violins: Only 50 People Showed Up to This Music Festival twitter:description: The lesson? Always sell booze twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt97c1cdca8ac31f57/698688bdcd804d0ffbcca174/452413593.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Cue the Sad Violins: Only 50 People Showed Up to This Music Festival > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Apr 11, 2014 12:00 PM UTC  Portrait of crying baby girl and teddy bear Portrait of crying baby girl and teddy bear Getty Images by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Apr 11, 2014 12:00 PM UTC Ever wonder what would happen if you threw a music festival and no one came? An Australian festival just found out. Top of the Hill Festival was a well-meaning, community-oriented, all-ages music festival located in Swan Hill, a town located some 350kms north of Melbourne, which has close to 10,000 residents. Fewer than 50 of them came to the festival on Saturday. When it became clear that the festival was not attracting attendees, organizers slashed to just $10 from 6.30pm onwards in the hopes of getting more people through the gate at the Riverside Park festival site in time for a headlining set by Australian band [Audemia.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUKL4mIGZ70) The price cutting effort didn’t work and the festival closed. “The acts on the day were great and the people who supported us and came on the day were fantastic,” festival organizer [Brad Morpeth told ](http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/2207753/disappointment-at-turnout/?cs=1270)_The Guardian_. “We just didn’t have the right combination for Swan Hill.” Festival organizers are conducting a survey on their Facebook page looking to the community for answers as to what went wrong. So far, high ticket prices, a line up without any major musical acts and a lack of alcohol at the event seem to be the culprits. “Regardless of there being no one there, I’m very proud of how our setup came together,” organizers said on the festival’s [Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/musicfestswanhill?fref=ts). “We haven’t dismissed a 2015 event, but we have just got to go back to the drawing board.” \[via [The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/2207753/disappointment-at-turnout/?cs=1270)\] **MORE**: [Eminem and Outkast to Headline Lollapalooza](http://time.com/38386/eminem-and-outkast-to-headline-lollapalooza/) **MORE**: [Kanye West, Tom Petty, Macklemore to Headline Outside Lands 2014](http://time.com/54519/outside-lands-kanye-west-tom-petty-macklemore-2014/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/58038/cue-the-sad-violins-only-50-people-showed-up-to-this-music-festival/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/58038/cue-the-sad-violins-only-50-people-showed-up-to-this-music-festival/"},"headline":"Cue the Sad Violins: Only 50 People Showed Up to This Music Festival","datePublished":"2014-04-11T12:00:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:42.528Z","description":"The lesson? 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