Just under 2000 of the 10,000 tickets sold.
Festival producer Dan Allen yesterday told the Otago Daily Times organisers knew some of the reasons they "didn't have as many ticket sales as we should have".
He said despite the loss, the first-year event was "brilliant" in almost all other respects and would return with a bang.
"Primarily, we just need to have a couple of bigger New Zealand acts, as well as a couple of more current international artists ... that are a big hit at the time," Mr Allen said.
"Queenstown was full of people for New Year's Eve and a lot of people either didn't know about it or didn't come, because we did not have a current major act such as LMFAO."
The marketing for the event did not start until August last year and he said that would be a "massive focus" of the second festival, with an emphasis on online and campus marketing.
While it would keep its focus mainly on dance music, he said there could be a move to diversify into other genres, as well as addressing issues such as the lack of shelter by providing shade marquees.
Mr Allen said other possibilities included making the starting time for music later in the evening and finishing later in the morning, and a wider range of food and drink.
The Otago Daily Times spoke to Mr Allen just before he returned to the United States, where the festival team and financiers would go through the figures and decide how to approach Earthtonz 2012.
"Once we have got that sorted, we can start chasing some of those bigger name bands that we need to make it a marquee event."
