K-pop series Waterbomb postpones US debut
The US debut of K-pop touring series Waterbomb has been postponed due to “operational challenges”.
The water-themed music festival was set to take place at Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles from 28-29 September, but has now been called off with less than three weeks to go. Ticket-holders will be automatically refunded.
Acts booked to perform had included ATEEZ, Chung Ha, Hwasa, K-will, Kwon Eunbi, Loco, PH-1, Ryu Sujeong, Simon Dominic and DJ HOWMINI.
“We deeply appreciate the support and enthusiasm you‘ve shown for Waterbomb LA 2024,” says a statement on the event’s Instagram page. “However, due to various operational challenges, we regret to inform you that the event has been postponed. Your safety and delivering the best experience possible remain our top priorities, and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
“We’ll return stronger and better prepared to deliver the Waterbomb experience you’ve been waiting for.”
The festival was launched by Hong Kong-based streaming platform Viu and Singapore-based Evergreen Group Holdings, with local promoters helping bring it to new territories.
“Initially, we set ticket prices to cover these costs and ensure a reasonable profit. However, we recognise that this has become a burden for our fans”
Waterbomb mixes various water activities alongside local and international lineups of K-pop, hip-hop, and EDM performers. First held in 2015 in Seoul, South Korea, the series expanded to new markets last year with two editions in Japan and one in Bangkok.
This year, it was due to visit nine cities in South Korea, four in Japan, and one in Thailand, along with new editions in LA, Vietnam, Taipei and Dubai.
However, the LA spin-off had experienced a troubled build-up, with organisers receiving criticism from fans after setting admission at $135-380 per day. They later apologised in response to the backlash, lowering ticket prices and revising the seating plan.
“Unlike Waterbomb Seoul, where additional costs such as flights, accommodation, security, and transportation for more than 200 people including artists and staff are not required, hosting Waterbomb in LA incurs significant expenses in these areas,” said promoters in an online Q&A at the time.
“The extended stay due to long-distance travel has also increased artist fees, and the cost of obtaining performance visas for artists and staff in the US is significantly higher compared to other countries. Additionally, local production and operation costs in LA are much higher.
“Initially, we set ticket prices to cover these costs and ensure a reasonable profit. However, we recognise that this has become a burden for our fans. Therefore, we have decided to adjust the prices, prioritising the event over profit, in order to reduce the burden on our customers.”
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Poland’s Fest Festival to return in 2025
Poland’s Fest Festival is to return next year following a “restructuring process” at organiser Follow The Step.
The scheduled fourth edition of the event, which last took place two years ago, was cancelled in August 2023 – just days before it was due to take place – and filed for bankruptcy after selling only 50% of its tickets.
Follow The Step began a restructure in the wake of the cancellation, which came two months after it called off its Warsaw festival On Air, and suspended its participation in all its pending events, which it switched to other promoters.
However, Fest Festival 2025 has now been confirmed for Silesia Park in Chorzów, near Katowice, on 15-16 August.
“We spent the last year on intensive restructuring work,” says a statement by organisers. “The 2023 edition was a huge lesson for us and we learnt from it. We are coming back humble, stronger, and with an ambitious plan to create an even more beautiful festival.”
The 35,000-cap festival, which was set to feature the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Kasabian and Peggy Gou, had previously seen its attendance expand by 30% per year to become one of the fastest-growing music festivals in eastern Europe.
“Participants who have not received a refund for their purchased tickets will receive passes from us to next year’s Fest”
Next year’s capacity will revert to 20,000 – the same number as the first edition of the event, with ticket-holders left out of pocket by the 2023 cancellation to be offered free admission to the event. Tickets go on sale on 23 September.
“Our main goal is to focus on what matters most – you, our participants,” continues the statement. “We start the new year with a settlement from 2023 and as promised earlier, participants who have not received a refund for their purchased tickets will receive passes from us to next year’s Fest.
“Five thousand tickets will be given for free to customers who did not receive a refund for previously purchased tickets. The remaining 15,000 places will be divided into 12,000 two-day passes and 3,000 one-day tickets for each day of the festival.”
In order to be “completely transparent” with fans, the team have detailed the plans on the event’s new website, including a rolling ticket sales counter.
“The 2025 edition is held under the sign of full transparency and transparent communication,” it adds. “To prove these words, we have placed a counter on the website indicating the current number of participants in the upcoming edition of the event. This data will include the total number of tickets sold and participants who received tickets for the next edition of the event.”
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Fans left out of pocket as Belgian fest goes bust
Ticket-holders for Belgium’s W-Festival have been warned they have a “nearly zero percent” chance of refunds after the event was cancelled two weeks before it was due to take place.
The 80s and 90s-themed beach festival’s ninth edition was scheduled to be held in the city of Ostend from 23-25 August, featuring acts such as Adam Ant, 2 Unlimited, Adamski, Culture Beat, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Snap! and Tony Hadley.
But the company behind the event, Wave to Synth, says it has been forced to “throw in the towel” and has filed for bankruptcy, citing slow ticket sales, among other factors.
A statement from promoters reads: “The festival sector will become a bit quieter. After years of struggle, the last notes have been played on the W-Festival stage, as our organisation, with a heavy heart, officially will file for bankruptcy.
“The W-Festival board has taken extensive steps to keep the company running, but now, just a few weeks before the start of the festival, we are faced with the heart-wrenching decision to throw in the towel.
“The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions have had a devastating impact on the event sector. Additionally, the W-Festival faced the bankruptcy of our ticket provider, Festicket, in 2022, and unfortunately, we are experiencing disappointing ticket sales in 2024, contrary to all forecasts. After years of dedication and efforts to adapt to the new circumstances, as well as various initiatives to mitigate the damage, it is no longer possible for the W-Festival to keep the organisation afloat.”
“It is incredibly painful to conclude this musical adventure after nine years”
Around 30,000 people attended last year’s edition but ticket sales were said to be around half that for 2024 at the time of this year’s cancellation. Day tickets cost between €79 and €94, with three-day tickets costing €219.
“It is incredibly painful to conclude this musical adventure after nine years,” adds a statement from the company’s board. “For now, our focus is on closing the bankruptcy properly.”
Trustee Petr Seymoens tells The Brussels Times that the company has “no money”, and puts the chances of compensation for “ordinary creditors” such as ticket holders at “nearly 0%”.
VRT reports that in the wake of the cancellation, a group of seven volunteers from the festival took it upon themselves to organise an alternative event over the same weekend.
Earlier this year, promoters of Switzerland’s Vibiscum Festival offered ticketholders admission to two other events as compensation after saying they were “unable to provide refunds” as a result of financial difficulties.
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Slovakia’s Pohoda confirms 2025 return
Promoters of Slovakia’s Pohoda Festival have put speculation about the event’s future to rest after confirming it will return in 2025.
The most recent edition of the three-day independent festival in July was curtailed on its second night amid adverse weather after a thunderstorm caused a large tent stage to collapse and injured 29 people.
Scheduled sets by acts such as Royal Blood, Morcheeba, Nia Archives, Black Pumas, Mount Kimbie and Ezra Collective were unable to take place as a result.
“The safety of our guests is our priority, and therefore we believe that our decision, made with great regret, will be understood by everyone,” said organisers at the time.
However, it has now been announced that the 30,000-cap event will take place at Trenčín Airport from 10-12 July next year.
“We still have a lot of work ahead of us to complete the prematurely ended 2024 edition”
“We still have a lot of work ahead of us to complete the prematurely ended 2024 edition, and there are many questions to which we do not yet have answers,” says the festival team. “Nevertheless, we look forward with hope to the coming days, weeks and months as we prepare the new edition of the festival for you.”
Led by CEO Michal Kaščák, the music and arts festival was launched in 1997 and has featured acts such as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Pulp, Kraftwerk, The xx, Liam Gallagher, Wolf Alice, The Chemical Brothers, PJ Harvey, The Prodigy, M.I.A. and The Libertines.
A campaign, set up in the aftermath of this year’s cancellation to help ensure Pohoda’s survival, has raised more than €140,000 to date. A series of fundraising gigs have also been held.
“We thank you for all the support you have shown us, whether it be through positive messages, tributes, Concerts for Pohoda, donations or other acts of solidarity,” add festival organisers. “Each act of kindness and support has touched us deeply, and we receive them with heartfelt thanks. They give us the strength to begin preparations for Pohoda 2025.”
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40+ UK festivals cancelled: What’s going on?
Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) CEO John Rostron has unpicked the key issues facing the beleaguered UK sector this summer, with more than 40 festivals already postponed, cancelled or shut down in 2024.
The family-run Towersey Festival – the UK’s longest-running independent, having launched in 1965 – became the latest casualty earlier this month, announcing that its upcoming August edition would be its last, citing “increasing financial and economic challenges since the pandemic”.
It joined a list of losses from this year’s calendar that already includes NASS Festival, Bradford’s Challenge Festival, El Dorado, Pennfest, Connect Music Festival, 110 Above Festival, Leopollooza, Long Division, Bluedot and Barn On The Farm, with the majority of organisers blaming significant increases in operational costs.
Rostron tells IQ that promoters have described the current climate as “the most challenging time it’s ever been”.
“It’s an incredibly challenging environment, because they’ve got multiple things that have all come together at the same time – some of which is long wind from Covid and Brexit impacting,” he explains. “There are a couple of wise people who saw this coming out of the pandemic, but obviously it is very different seeing it to now feeling it.”
While the supporting data is limited up to this point, Rostron says the indications are that the cost of living crisis “has definitely come to bear” ahead of this summer’s season.
“What we feared would happen, is happening – and it will get worse before it gets better”
“One thing we have picked up on is that the overall sales pattern is changing,” he points out. “A lot of people might want, or intend, to go to a festival, but cost of living means they won’t buy their tickets as early as they used to. They’re waiting a lot later – and that ‘later’ adds to the problem.
“Somebody saying, ‘I’m going to go, but I haven’t bought a ticket yet’ is no good to a festival organiser who’s got to pay a bill for a stage upfront. But it’s understandable, because we know what cost of living feels like. We’re all in it, so we’re probably all making similar kinds of decisions.”
Former Welsh Music Foundation chief Rostron, who co-founded Cardiff’s Sŵn Festival, says he was first alerted to the unfolding situation within a month of taking the AIF helm in November 2022.
“I had an individual say to me, ‘There is a cultural crisis coming; I can see a real problem coming down the tracks,'” recalls Rostron. “At the time, it was the only voice saying that, because a lot of the festivals were feeling incredibly energised because they’d finally put Covid to bed. But what I hadn’t realised is how many of them had made a loss on the events they’d delivered in 2022. They’d sold out, but they’d still made a loss.
“This one voice said, ‘I think there’s a cultural crisis’ and then as some festivals began to fall in the spring of 2023, that voice became loud in my head. What we feared would happen, is happening – and it will get worse before it gets better.”
Rostron suggests that headlines about record-setting A-list global tours and more than one million people attending live music events in London in a single week had distracted from the growing concerns lower down the food chain. But there has since been a reality check.
“We talk to the supply chain a lot, and they need two or three years of relative calm in order to be able to build back and relax their terms”
“There were a lot of people in the ecosystem doing well and feeling very optimistic, so the voices of errors and problems felt like they were on the fringes,” he says. “But that is coming home and you can see it in two big areas: grassroots music venues and festivals. And it’s not just our voices anymore – you hear it from other people in the talent development pipeline: artists, managers and agents, because they’re not getting as many bookings this year.
“The number of stages and events has gone down and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is a problem, because we’re not getting the opportunities we used to get; what does that mean for the future?’ Those voices are beginning to join with us now.”
Regarding escalating supply chain costs, from fencing to toilets, Rostron says there is no simple solution for either side.
“Within their world, there’s been a lot of upheaval,” he says. “A lot of it is Brexit and the pandemic, but they have other issues – their ability to buy new gear is challenging when there’s high interest rates, and it’s challenging to store them. Those things add pressure to their ability to settle prices, alongside that foundation of Brexit, which has caused huge problems for the supply chain in terms of locations and costs.
“We talk to the supply chain a lot, and they need two or three years of relative calm in order to be able to build back and relax their terms. Everybody’s under pressure, so the prices have not just gone up, but they want their money upfront and that is incredibly difficult. That’s not the environment that existed in 2019 where if you had a loss one year, you could cover it the next year. That’s all gone.
“There are lots of great people in the sector working very hard to try and come to deals and help people through – from generator and audio companies to agents and artists – but they can’t always make it, and that’s why you’re seeing so many fall.”
“It’s clearly already too late for 43 festivals, and it’s going to be too late for four more that I know are going to go”
In response to the developing crisis, the trade association has launched a campaign called Five Percent For Festivals to encourage festivalgoers to contact their MPs to lobby for a VAT reduction on tickets. AIF states that a reduced VAT from 20% to 5% on ticket sales for the next three years will give festival promoters the space they need to rebuild, and will resume its campaigning in the wake of next month’s UK general election.
“I’m very optimistic that we will get something,” says Rostron. “I’m very confident. Naively confident? I don’t know. We’ve had regular conversations and we haven’t had a ‘No’. The sad bit is, the more festivals cancel – and what we said might happen begins to happen – the stronger those conversations are.
“The CMS inquiry into grassroots music venues made a recommendation to look at modelling of VAT in the grassroots, and the conversation has widened to say that should include festivals. All of that will take time. It takes time to model, it takes time to implement, and there’s still obviously a chance that it won’t happen – they can make the recommendation and then say, ‘No’.
“I think there will be intervention. My concern is that by the time something does happen, how many [festivals] will have gone? We’re going to see more independent festivals go because they’re not going to be able to make it to that point of intervention, whatever that intervention looks like. It’s clearly already too late for 43 festivals, and it’s going to be too late for four more that I know are going to go.”
He continues: “What’s good for us is there is an election about to happen, so we’ll have a new group of politicians with a five-year mandate, and that is stronger to work with than where we were, which was with a group of MPs that didn’t know how long their futures would be.”
“We’ve had a lack of new energy and blood and ideas because of Covid, and we’ll begin to see that trickle back”
Indeed, sounding an optimistic note, Rostron can already picture a brighter tomorrow for the industry – with Generation Z leading the charge.
“What will the festival sector do creatively? Well, they’re already planning it,” he observes. “You’ve got people going, ‘There’s a headliner issue? We’re going to change the way that we book.’ A lot of festivals sell the majority of their tickets without announcing any artists – people go because they love Shambala, or Mighty Hoopla, or Green Man, or End Of The Road. And as long as those artists are of good quality and fit with the audience’s expectations, they’re not really looking at who’s playing, so I think festivals will double down on that.
“For some of them, you’re going to see degrowth. You’re going to say, ‘As we expanded, we got to the point where we needed those [big] headliners. If we shrink down a bit, we don’t need that anymore.'”
He concludes: “You had this big gap with young people that couldn’t go to festivals because of Covid, and that’s impacted us in ways that we can’t understand. But some of them went to festivals in 2022 and 2023, and they’ll go again this year. And guess what? They’ll now start to leave their footprint creatively in the festival sector.
“You will see some of those individuals be inspired to create their own events, or pockets within existing events. You’ll see that magic start to sprout up because that’s where innovation always comes from. We’ve had a lack of new energy and blood and ideas because of Covid, and we’ll begin to see that trickle back.
“Next year, I think you’ll see the seeds of some future great festivals and some others change quite dramatically. That will be quite Gen Z-driven, and I’m really excited to see what they do.”
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Cancelled Swiss fest announces compensation scheme
Promoters of a cancelled Swiss festival are offering ticketholders admission to two other events as compensation after saying they were “unable to provide refunds” as a result of financial difficulties.
Vibiscum Festival’s third edition had been due to take place in Vevey, Switzerland, from 30 May to 2 June, starring acts such as Hardwell, Lost Frequencies, Hamza, Shaka Ponk, Zola and Crawlers. Ticket prices started at CHF95 (€99).
However, festival director William von Stockalper axed the event last month due to poor ticket sales, with no refunds offered. Amid criticism, he indicated there would be reimbursement “in one form or another”, with organisers insisting they were “fully committed to finding a fair solution for all affected festivalgoers”.
An alternative compensation scheme has now been announced after Murten’s Stars of Sounds Festival and Neuchâtel’s Openair Fluo agreed to open their doors to all Vibiscum ticket holders.
Fans who purchased a ticket for Vibiscum’s rap night on 30 May will be able to exchange it to gain entry to Openair Fluo, which will feature artists such as Franglish, Gambi and Niro, on 31 August.
In addition, people who have bought tickets for Vibsicum’s days dedicated to rock (31 May), electro (1 June) or classical (2 June) have the chance to attend an evening of their choice at Stars of Sounds, which runs from 4-6 July. Acts set to perform at the event include Gotthard, Scorpions, Paul Kalkbrenner, Calum Scott, Ray Dalton and Take That.
“Unfortunately, no other compensation can be considered”
Tickets to Openair Fluo and Stars of Sounds cost CHF93.22 and CHF109, respectively.
“Unfortunately, no other compensation can be considered,” says a statement from the Vibiscum team. “We would like to warmly thank the Stars of Sounds Festival in Murten and Openair Fluo in Neuchâtel for their support and solidarity, and hope that you will be able to enjoy their great programming.”
Reaction to the proposal has been largely negative on social media, with one fan branding it “shameful”, adding: “We don’t want ‘compensation’, we want a refund.”
Launched in 2022, Vibiscum was sponsored by Vevey-headquartered food and drink conglomerate Nestlé and drew 32,000 people across three days last year, headlined by Orelsan and DJ Snake. But Von Stockalper told Blue News that he pulled the plug on the 2024 edition after it reached “only half” of his 18,000 ticket sales target two weeks before it was scheduled to start.
“To be frank, we had been thinking about it for a week but we were still hoping for a significant jump in sales,” he said. “For a festival like ours, the current trend is to sell at the last minute, but given the sales, it would have been too risky to bet everything on that. It was a terrible choice, the most difficult decision of my professional career.”
Elaborating on the reasons for the cancellation, a statement on the festival’s website read: “The lack of ticket sales has made it impossible for us to cover the costs of artists and other vendors essential to making the festival happen. Despite all our efforts to promote the event, we have not achieved the objectives necessary to ensure its financial viability.”
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Festival Friday: Lineups, newbies & cancellations
It has been a week of ups and downs in the world of festivals, with new events announced, alongside further cancellations and lineup confirmations.
In the US, Connecticut’s biggest music festival Sound On Sound has been rechristened as Soundside Music Festival under C3 Presents. Noah Kahan and Foo Fighters will headline the event – known for its unique rotating single-stage set up – at Seaside Park in Bridgeport from 28-29 September.
Queens of the Stone Age, Goo Goo Dolls, Teddy Swims, Fleet Foxes, Norah Jones, Boyz II Men, Gregory Alan Isakov, Grace Potter, The Kills, Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories will also appear.
“In past years, this festival has drawn in over 50,000 visitors,” says Bridgeport, CT mayor Joe Ganim. “I am sure this year it will again draw tens of thousands who will get to experience all that Bridgeport has to offer. This is another example of how Bridgeport is ‘on the move’ as we strengthen our legacy of being the music and entertainment capital of Connecticut.”
Nine-stage, two weekend music celebration Austin City Limits will welcome headliners Dua Lipa, Tyler, The Creator, Chris Stapleton, Blink-182, Sturgill Simpson and Pretty Lights to Zilker Park over the weekends of 4-6 & 13-15 October. The lineup will also feature performances from Khruangbin, Leon Bridges, Carin León, Norah Jones, Reneé Rapp, Foster The People, Kehlani, Teddy Swims, Benson Boone, CAAMP, Dominic Fike, The Marías, Jungle, Dom Dolla, Chappell Roan, Porter Robinson, Fletcher, Something Corporate and David Shaw.
More than 30 Texas artists will grace this year’s ACL Fest stages, including Khruangbin, Leon Bridges, Norah Jones, Kevin Abstract, That Mexican OT, Mickey Guyton, Penny & Sparrow, Chance Peña, Dexter And The Moonrocks, Bob Schneider, Asleep At The Wheel, whookilledkenny, Kalu & The Electric Joint, The Droptines, Jon Muq, Daiistar, Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Late Night Drive Home, Theo Lawrence, Chief Cleopatra, West 22nd and Chaparelle.
C3 Presents’ Sudden Little Thrills festival, due to be headlined by SZA and The Killers, has been cancelled less than a month after being announced
However, C3’s Sudden Little Thrills festival, which was slated to debut at Hazelwood Green, Pittsburgh, between 7-8 September with headliners SZA and The Killers, has been abruptly cancelled less than a month after being announced. In a short statement, organisers say it will no longer take place “due to circumstances beyond our control”.
The Killers will top the bill at Mexico’s Festival Pulso GNP, which will be held at Autódromo de Querétaro on 12 October, with a supporting cast including Belanova, Franz Ferdinand, Los Auténticos Decadentes, Sabino and Simple Plan.
The full lineup has now been released for the ninth edition of Paradise City, which is set for 28-30 June at Ribaucourt Castle, Perk, Belgium. Newly announced artists include David August, Rival Consoles, Rex The Dog, Sally C and OCB, plus homegrown talent such as Bjeor, Catalina, Eline Anne & r.omy, Odymel and RIET.
They join the likes of Bonobo, Maribou State, Marlon Hoffstadt, Job Jobse, Daria Kolosova, Skin on Skin and DJ Gigola. The festival will also feature a seventh stage, dedicated entirely to chill-out, downtempo and ambient performances.
Nelly Furtado will headline free, open-air festival Isle of MTV Malta 2024 on 16 July, when other acts will include DJ Snake and Raye. It will be followed by Isle of MTV Malta Music Week, a series of club nights and parties across various venues on the island with various artists including Benni Benassi, Icona Pop and more from 16-21 July.
Iceland Airwaves has unveiled the second wave of artists joining its 25th anniversary edition, taking place in Downtown Reykjavik this 7-9 November. Highlights include Overmono, The Vaccines, English Teacher, Villano Antillano, Personal Trainer, MRCY, Lynks, GDRN, Monobloc, Gabríel Ólafs, Alice Longyu Gao and cumgirl8, with previously announced artists including Shygirl, Bar Italia, Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul, Joy (Anonymous) and Saya Gray.
And the 10th anniversary Ultra Europe Music Festival will bring Afrojack, Alison Wonderland, Subtronics, DJ Snake, W&W, KSHMR, SLANDER, Vini Vici, Black Tiger Sex Machine, Deborah De Luca and CamelPhat to Park Mladeži in Split, Croatia, from 12-14 July. It will also star Adam Beyer, Boris Brejcha and Martin Garrix.
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Aussie festival cancels after costs rocket 529%
The crisis engulfing Australia’s festival scene has claimed another victim with the cancellation of NSW’s Return to Rio.
Organisers of the boutique funk, soul and house event, which was first held in 2013, have pulled the plug on the 2024 edition, citing a 529% rise in police and medical costs amounting to A$300,000 (€183,370) as a result of new laws.
In NSW since 2019, festivals considered high-risk or “subject” events need to submit a safety management plan – usually requiring a bigger police and medical presence – and Return to Rio was considered a subject festival under the regulations.
“It’s devastating,” co-founder Alex Cooper, who runs the event with her husband Ricky, tells the Sydney Morning Herald. “There needs to be more done for the industry to survive. It’s just financially unviable.”
“For a few thousand people, we had to have a policeman, a medic, a security guard, a member of the production team, a member of the bar team and they had to stay in the central control room all day.
“In Victoria and the ACT, they don’t have this problem. In Queensland, they don’t have this problem. The rest of the world, they don’t have this problem. And we didn’t have the problem before 2019.”
Return to Rio organisers say they would have needed to raise ticket prices by about $100 to cover costs for 2024
More than 40 Australian music festivals have also been cancelled, postponed, or evacuated due to heat, fires, rain or floods over the past decade, including more than 20 in 2022 alone. More than one-third of festivals in the country lost money in the 2022-2023 financial year, according to a recent report from Creative Australia.
High-profile NSW festivals Splendour in the Grass, Groovin the Moo and Falls are all taking a break for 2024, while it was recently claimed that NSW police were charging some organisers up to 12 times that of Victoria.
The Coopers, who hope that Return to Rio will be able to come back next year, say they would have needed to raise ticket prices by about $100 to cover costs for 2024, which would have led to a “massive drop off in our expected numbers”.
A review of the Music Festivals Act, commissioned by the NSW Labor government last year, is still ongoing.
“We’re really starting to push into the next festival season,” says Australian Festivals Association head Mitch Wilson. “Organisers make all their plans six, nine, 12 months out.”
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New Zealand festival to ‘take a break’ in 2025
Organisers of New Zealand’s Splore Festival have warned it is set to be a “really tough year” for promoters after cancelling its 2025 edition.
Held on the shores of Tāpapakanga Regional Park, the long-running boutique music and arts festival was launched in 1998 and has been staged annually since 2015. It most recently took place in February, when it featured acts such as Sampha, Greentea Peng, The Pharcyde and James Murphy.
“We found this last Splore in 2024 a fantastic event, really great energy, but we didn’t sell as many tickets as we would’ve liked, so we were affected economically there,” festival producer Fryderyk Kublikowski tells RNZ.
“It looks like it’s going to be a really tough year for festival promoters and, rather than jump in and compete for attention and our community’s hard-earned dollars, we can see that everyone’s going to be doing it tough probably in the next 12 to 18 months, so it feels sort of like the socially responsible thing to do.”
The 8,000-cap event is pencilled in to return the following year, from 20-22 February 2026.
“A lot of event and festival promoters are struggling”
“We suffered a financial loss, but we paid all our performers and suppliers, and we were able to pay our bills in full,” says Kublikowski. “Splore’s been going for 25 years, so we’re a real touchstone event. Splore will be stronger for taking a fallow year.
“A lot of event and festival promoters are struggling, there’s a lot of festivals who take a financial hit and will go on sale almost immediately for the following year. They’re sort of covering their previous year’s losses with the following year’s ticket sales, which isn’t a very responsible thing to do.”
New Zealand’s festival season is yet to be impacted as severely as neighbouring Australia, which has witnessed a flood of cancellations including Splendour in the Grass, Groovin The Moo, Coastal Jam, Summerground, Vintage Vibes, Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree and ValleyWays.
“Seeing festivals like Splendour in the Grass in Australia cancelling for undisclosed reasons only three weeks after going to sale, and… Groovin the Moo pulling out after being on sale for a few weeks… it’s very tough,” adds Kublikowski.
More than one-third of festivals in Australia lost money in the 2022-2023 financial year, according to a recent report from Creative Australia, which listed rising operational costs (47%), lack of funding and grants (39%), insurance (31%) and extreme weather events (22%) as the most significant barriers to running music festivals in Australia.
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Oz festival woes deepen with SITG cancellation
Australia’s festival crisis has deepened following the cancellation of the long-running Splendour in the Grass (SITG).
The festival, held at the North Byron Parklands in Yelgun, New South Wales, was due to take place from 19-21 July, topped by Kylie Minogue, Future and Arcade Fire.
But just two weeks after unveiling the bill, Live Nation-backed organiser Secret Sounds today confirmed that it has called off the 2024 edition, blaming “unexpected events”.
“We know there were many fans excited for this year’s line-up and all the great artists planning to join us, but due to unexpected events, we’ll be taking the year off,” says a statement posted on social media.
“Ticket-holders will be refunded automatically by Moshtix. We thank you for your understanding and will be working hard to be back in future years.”
The likes of Groovin the Moo, Coastal Jam, Summerground, Vintage Vibes, Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree and ValleyWays have also been cancelled
It follows a difficult couple of years for SITG. Co-producer Jessica Ducrou reported a 30% drop in sales from 50,000 tickets to 35,000 in 2023, while the previous edition was hit with the worst weather in the festival’s 20-plus-year history, resulting in the cancellation of its first day.
SITG, which was launched in 2001, has become the highest-profile casualty yet on Australia’s 2024 festival circuit, joining the likes of Coastal Jam, Summerground, Vintage Vibes, Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree and ValleyWays, all of which referenced financial difficulties amid the cost-of-living crisis, plus Groovin the Moo, which cited slow ticket sales.
In addition, New Year’s Eve’s Falls Festival, which is also organised by Secret Sounds, fell by the wayside for 2023 in order for promoters to “allow space to reimagine how the festival will look in the future”.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year, Music Victoria CEO Simone Schinkel suggested the challenges were a legacy of the pandemic.
“There is a generation who missed out on those coming-of-age, life-affirming moments,” she said. “We’ve had a really fundamental shift. If you grew up in a pandemic, going into an enclosed space that’s small and meant to hold lots of hot sweaty bodies just might not be the same vibe you’re calling for. It’s also really hard when we have a cost-of-living crisis, when tickets are going up.”
“The Australian music festival industry is currently facing a crisis”
SITG had received a A$100,000 (€60,000) in funding via the Live Music Australia programme to assist with organising this year’s festival.
“The cancellation of Splendour in the Grass is devastating news,” says NSW government’s minister for music John Graham. “The festival industry is under extreme pressure, and I am deeply worried about the health of the festival scene here in NSW. The NSW government offered financial support to help the event proceed this year. We will continue to work with them and hope to see them return next year.”
Australian Festival Association MD Mitch Wilson says he is “devastated” by the event’s predicament.
“The Australian music festival industry is currently facing a crisis, and the flow-on effects will be felt across the local communities, suppliers and contractors that sustain our festivals and rely on them to support their livelihoods,” he says. “We need government at the table to help us through this period and assist in stabilising our industry to sustainable levels. This needs a national approach.”
More than 40 Australian music festivals have also been cancelled, postponed, or evacuated due to heat, fires, rain or floods over the past decade, including more than 20 in 2022 alone, amid record rainfall in the eastern states.
Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival, where two people died in 2019, is set to become the first in Queensland to introduce pill testing
This year’s cancellations follow a patchy 2023 season in which Bluesfest lost 30,000 punters and Dark Mofo (Tasmania) and Goomfest (Victoria) took a year off. Several festivals also called it quits for good, including Newtown Festival in Sydney, Play On The Plains in Deniliquin, and Wangaratta Jazz & Blues, Music In The Vines and Goldfields Gothic in Victoria.
In addition, the parent companies of Now & Again, Grass Is Greener and Lunar Electric, went into voluntary administration or put in liquidation.
Meanwhile, ABC reports that Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival, where two people died in 2019, is set to become the first in Queensland to introduce pill testing. Health minister Shannon Fentiman says the state government would invest almost $1 million to fund the the scheme over the next two years.
Festival organiser Eric Lamir describes the move as a “step in the right direction in reducing drug-related harm”.
Last week’s announcement followed a study which analysed drug-related deaths at Australian festivals over almost a decade, which showed that most could potentially have been prevented through harm reduction strategies such as pill testing.
The study, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, and led by Associate Professor Jennifer Schumann, from Monash University’s Department of Forensic Medicine, looked at drug-related deaths at music festivals throughout the country between 1 July 2000 and 31 December 2019.
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