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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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