Download producer Nigel Melder on its Australian debut this weekend: “we’re not in a rush!”

Two days out from the inaugural Australian staging in Melbourne of UK hard rock/metal festival Download, its event producer Nigel Melder of Live Nation Australia is quietly confident.

Ticket sales have been strong enough for him to start thinking about next year’s festival.

Sales have indicated that the audience is mostly aged early 20s to mid-40s, and with a strong female representation.

“It’s not just a dudefest,” Melbourne-based Melder emphasises.

The first Australian bill is a strong one. Headliners Korn are just flying in and out for Download.

There are major international names (Prophets of Rage, Limp Bizkit, Mastodon, Good Charlotte, NOFX, Suicidal Tendencies) and Australian crowd pleasers as Northlane, King Parrot, Ocean Grove, Psycroptic and Chase Atlantic.

Exciting is the mix of risers as Sweden’s Sabaton, France’s Gojira, Perth’s Make Them Suffer, Melbourne’s High Tension and California’s Nails who’re destined to be discovered during the day.

Says Melder, “We wanted a mix of big names and emerging acts.

“It was a long process in getting the acts – this is a first time festival in the market, so you can understand artists, managers and agents might have been apprehensive – but ultimately the final bill was pretty much where we started."

Were Guns N' Roses, who’re headlining the UK version this year, ever considered?

“They’ve been recently, so no. It’s our first year so we had budgets to target and we had to consider the state of the Australian dollar.”

Was there anyone who’d been on his wishlist?

“Ozzy would have been nice. But his (farewell world) tour begins in May, so we were just a little bit early.

“There were some other acts who’re predominant in my record collection but they can always wait until next year,”

The UK version of Download became an instant success because its founder Andy Copping realised that younger  hard rock/metal audience were not as purist as their elder sisters and brothers, and mega-metal festivals like Monsters of Rock had not kept up with this.

They kept retreading the same metal superstars while the crowds’ tastes had widened to grunge and post-grunge bands like Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Ultimately they became dated and irrelevant.

Download incorporated these newer styles and, Copping says, had European festivals copying him.

Download Melbourne adopts the UK version’s two prime creeds.

Firstly, it’s important to create the headliners of tomorrow, and which Melder has done especially with the Australians on the bill.

Secondly, today’s younger festival goer is aiming for an all-encompassing multi-experience wider than who’s on the stage.

Melder agrees: “The person buying a ticket to a festival like this is wanting to go early and see who’s coming up because they do want to discover new acts.  

“A lot of the audience might be seeing Nails or Sabaton or The Story So Far for the first time.

“You want to come away seeing something new and different, and that’s the way we’ve programmed it.”

“The whole experience incorporates how the layout is very easy to get around.

“There are a lot of bars, and we made a definite to make sure the food selection was big.

“There’s the usual food you get at a festival like this plus catering for vegans and those who prefer halal.

This extends to the signing tent and the pop up church for romantics.

“We want to ensure that the fans can get as close to the acts, that they can shake their hands, get heir autographs, we’ve been very mindful to provide that.

“You want people to come back, by giving them what they want.”

Metal in particular boasts the strongest sense of loyalty between band and following.

Melder, a long time metal fan who played in metal bands, recounts how bands like Kiss and Metallica definitely knew the importance they held in the lives of their fans, and genuinely cared about them.

"Their album and DVD sleeves abounded with photos of fans who made their own T-shirts or painted band logos on their faces.”

Download is a partnership between Live Nation, Unified who are behind the sell-out camping festival, Unify: A Heavy Music Gathering, and Secret Sounds whose divisions include the Splendour in the Grass and Falls festivals, and last month’s inaugural Sydney City Limits.

Despite the expertise and their understanding of audience expectations, any hard rock event in Australia would have the collapse of Soundwave after it was drawing 250,000 nationally at its peak and overtook Big Day Out as biggest Australian festival.

Melder is reluctant to talk in depth about Soundwave’s collapse as he was not involved in it

But he thinks there was too much information released, which allowed “everyone to have an opinion”.

He believes that Soundwave’s dilemma, which also affected other Australian festivals at the time, was the drop in the value of the Australian dollar which blew out budgets.

“They definitely built up something mammoth which had never been done before, and may be never be replicated.

“But you have to learn from history, whether it’s Soundwave or Big Day Out.

“If you rush in, you have a good chance of repeating history.

“If we’d launched Download Australia with eight stages and 70 acts, we’d be on a lot of trouble right now.

“We’re not in a rush, we’re taking it slowly to get to a level where it’s sustainable.

“It’s just Melbourne this time. Let’s see where we go from here.”