Big Red Bash organisers cancel 2025 edition but plan 2026 return

The organisers of the Big Red Bash outback music festival have announced that they are to take a break from hosting the outback music festival next year but that it will return in 2025.

The Outback Music Festival Group said it was not a decision it had taken lightly but that they are “overdue a break to reset and recharge”.

Explaining the multi-day festival is one the most logistically demanding events in the world to stage, festival founder Greg Donovan said “the spectacular desert location means we have no infrastructure on site, not even the basics of running water or electricity, so every year we effectively build and remove a mini city from scratch and spend six days looking after thousands of people … it's a huge task.”

Donovan added “after running non-stop since 2013 - with a COVID break in 2020, our team is ready for a reset and recharge.”

Launched in 2013, Australia's most remote music festival, draws thousands to Birdsville every year, more than 1,500 kilometres west of Brisbane, and injects millions of dollars into the western Queensland economy.

This year about 8,000 people attended the event, down from 11,000 the previous year.

Wet weather had also created challenges for organisers two years in a row.

Diamantina Shire Council Mayor Francis Murray said it will have a massive impact not only on Birdsville but all the towns that lead there, telling the ABC “it's going to be a very difficult tourist season next year.

"We're very resilient people out here, the businesses were here before the bash. They'll survive."

Also in outback Queensland, uncertainty surrounds the future of the Mount Isa Rodeo after a 45% drop in ticket sales this year.

Isa Rodeo Ltd Chair Rowena McNally said the rodeo committee will make a decision in the next week on whether the event, the biggest rodeo in the Southern Hemisphere, will go ahead next year.

The Big Red Bash is the latest Australian music festivals to have been cancelled or postponed in the past year.

Image: The Big Red Bash. Credit: The Outback Music Festival Group/Matt Williams.