Future Music Festival Asia bids farewell

After three consecutive years of organising Asia’s biggest music festival in Malaysia, Southeast Asia’s prominent, youth-centric, live events agency, The Livescape Group and Future Music Australia announced the end of Future Music Festival Asia.

In the announcement on the FMFA website yesterday, all 59 staff members at Livescape Asia & Future Music Group said passion is the core to their will to not just entertain, but also setting and achieving goals of changing and impacting the live music scene in this region.

FMFA also expressed their gratitude to the fans whom they owe their fame and success to, throughout the last three years.

However, it seems as though all is not lost for fans and followers. A teaser in the statement indicated a new chapter could unfold:

“While the sun sets and we say goodbye to Future Music Festival Asia, know this. A new dawn will arise. As our Founders said today, "One chapter of the book is closed, 772 chapters to go". See you all in March next year.”

FMFA, a festival which has played a significant role for driving music tourists into the country by attracting over 30,000 foreign fans from across 85 countries and generating over RM120 million in tourist dollars last year, was recently got shot down by Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry.

Their application to run the festival in Changi Exhibition Centre got rejected on March 7 this year, a week shy from the festival date which is scheduled for March 13 and 14 where about 15,000 tickets have been sold.

The Singaporean authorities rejected their application due to FMFA’s tainted reputation after drug-related deaths were reported.

Singapore's cancellation was not the first for FMFA. In 2014, the second and final day of FMFA in Malaysia was cancelled after six festival-goers were found dead, reportedly from drug overdose.