The embattled Australian music festival industry has suffered yet another blow after the announcement that Kiama’s Changing Tides Music Festival has been cancelled for 2025 and will not be returning in the future.
Held at Kiama Showgrounds, the festival launched in 2023, with the first two editions of the event selling out.
However, despite having global artists such as Sam Fender set to headline the show, event organisers sent out emails to ticket holders last month informing them that the festival had been cancelled.
Sydney Conservatorium of Music student Noah Callanan, who is studying a Bachelor of Digital Music Media, said that music festival cancellations in Australia are becoming more frequent.
“It just seems more and more common,” he said.
“It’s almost become a risk now that when you buy a ticket to one of those festivals […] it’s not certain that this is going to go ahead.”
This is not the first music festival to be cancelled in Australia in the past few years.
The Groovin The Moo festival in Newcastle has also been cancelled the past two years in a row, leaving fans disappointed, while the popular Spilt Milk event was also cancelled in 2024, but will return later this year.