Behind the Curtain: How We Choose Which Festivals to Apply For

Festival season is rarely what it looks like from the outside. For us, the months leading up to summer are spent combing through applications, weighing offers, and turning down just as many gigs as we accept. Each decision shapes our year, our sound on stage, and the way fans experience Saving Abel in person.

When someone asks why we passed on a particular event or chased another one across the calendar, the answer usually comes down to a handful of core filters. We thought it was worth pulling the curtain back on what those filters actually look like, especially for our mates down in Australia, where the touring map is enormous and the festival culture runs deep.

Reading the Lineup Vibe

The first thing we do is imagine our set list sitting next to everyone else's announcement. A festival like Download Australia or Splendour in the Grass brings together a mix of heavy hitters, but the surrounding bill tells us whether our brand of Southern-fried post-grunge will land or feel like the odd one out. If the rest of the poster skews pop or hip-hop, we'd probably stick to headlining a smaller room in Melbourne or Brisbane instead.

We also look at where on the bill we're likely to land. Playing a second-stage slot at a stacked event can be more valuable than headlining a sleepy one. The trick is finding where our audience overlaps with the existing crowd, not where the cheque looks fattest. We recently published the meaning behind the lyrics of song title on our journal, and the same instinct that drives our songwriting also drives our festival pitches.

Factor	Worth Pursuing	Pass on It
Genre alignment	Clear stylistic fit with the rest of the lineup	Genre mismatch with the surrounding bill
Slot placement	Solid mid-tier position or better	Opening slot to a hostile crowd
Audience size	Established event with strong attendance	Unproven event with low turnout
Compensation	Paid performance with travel covered	Unpaid exposure offers only
Timing	Fits cleanly with our touring schedule	Conflicts with a more important date

Touring Distance and the Aussie Map

Australia is roughly the size of a continent, and yes, that matters a lot. A festival in Perth is a completely different logistical beast than one in Sydney, even when both are top-tier events. We've had to weigh domestic flights, gear shipping across state lines, and the reality that a run of Sydney-to-Melbourne shows can be more cost-effective than chasing a single festival in regional Queensland.

Regional festivals like Groovin the Moo or smaller Rock at the Ramp-style events can be brilliant for fan connection, but the travel math sometimes wins out. We've learned the hard way that a sold-out slot in Wagga Wagga isn't worth a band burnout come March.

Timing the Calendar Right

Our release and tour calendar drives almost everything. If we're recording new material or sitting on a single we want to break, we hold festival pitches for the window right before or right after that push. We've cancelled applications outright rather than split attention between the studio and a half-hearted promo push.

Summer festivals in the Southern Hemisphere hit between November and February, which lines up awkwardly with our usual North American touring block. That's why we tend to target a single Aussie swing per cycle, often timed around an event like Falls Festival or Good Things, so we're not bouncing back and forth across the Pacific more than once.

Audience Mix and Local Support

We pay close attention to how a festival curates its local support acts. A great event lifts local bands rather than steamrollering them, and we want to be part of that ecosystem. When we see a festival that treats its undercard with the same respect as its headliners, that goes a long way.

For our mates in Australia, that means checking whether First Nations artists and homegrown talent get meaningful slots, or whether they're shuffled into the parking lot stage at 11 a.m. The festivals that get this right tend to be the ones where we enjoy playing the most.

Reputation Behind the Marquee

A festival's reputation is more than its Instagram following. We ask around, check past lineups, and see how the promoter treats the technical riders. If the backline is shabby or the hospitality is non-existent, the crowd experience suffers too. A glossy promo video doesn't always match the reality of load-in times and catering.

When we were prepping our last round of applications, we dug into festival histories and found a few events that looked great on paper but had quietly run into financial trouble. Avoiding those saved us from losing deposits and messing up our routing.

What Happens After We Say Yes

Once we commit, the work isn't done. We jump on promo calls, plan our stage time, and work with our distribution partners to make sure the run is financially viable. We rely on the platform to keep our royalty tracking honest through every festival swing, which shapes where we focus our energy afterward.

For anyone curious about how a single set fits into our bigger creative picture, the songwriting choices in our latest catalogue echo the same principles we bring to festival selection: stay authentic, know your audience, and never chase a stage that doesn't want you.

Saving Abel tour dates and festival slots go live on our website the moment they're confirmed. If you want to catch us live, grab your tickets through the merch store, follow our socials, and subscribe to the newsletter so the next wave of shows lands in your inbox before they sell out.