NSW Government Rescues Five Aussie Festivals

Five major Australian music festivals have been thrown a financial lifeline, with the NSW Government allocating emergency funding to support their 2025 editions amid mounting industry pressure.

Lost Paradise, Listen Out, Yours and Owls, Field Day and Bluesfest will each receive up to $500,000 through the Contemporary Music Festival Viability Fund, a $2.25 million emergency pool launched in September 2024 to stabilise the festival sector.

The funding aims to ease costs and financial pressures stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing inflation, and the broader cost-of-living crisis—factors that have led to a wave of cancellations across the country.

“The post covid era has been a financial nightmare for music festivals in NSW,” said John Graham, Minister for Music and the Night-time Economy. “We can’t afford to lose that cultural experience because the festivals can’t afford to pay their rising bills.”

The grants follow the cancellation of several iconic events including Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival, Spilt Milk and Groovin’ the Moo, which were unable to proceed in recent years due to rising production costs and dwindling ticket sales.

Bluesfest intended to continue beyond 2025

The funding has already altered the course for at least one festival. Bluesfest, which had previously announced its final edition in 2025, will now continue in 2026 thanks to the financial support.

Adelle Robinson, Managing Director of Fuzzy Operations — the team behind Listen Out and Field Day — said she was “seriously considering not moving forward” with the 2025 shows before the grants were confirmed.

“The market was so precarious at the end of last year,” Robinson said. “A reset with our programming and the Contemporary Music Festival Viability Fund were the two reasons the show went ahead.”

Other recent festival cancellations include such as; Good Life, A Festival Called Panama, Esoteric, Souled Out, and Forth Valley Blues.