Fairbridge Festival announces “heartbeaking” cancellation

Fairbridge Festival 2024 has been cancelled. The team behind the popular music and arts festival, Folkworld, made a statement yesterday saying they were “heartbroken” to announce the 2024 event would no longer be going ahead.

“Lagging ticket sales, increased production costs, and, as importantly, insufficient volunteers to put on a Festival of this kind have meant the much-loved Fairbridge Festival is unable to proceed in 2024,” it read. “The Board and Team behind the Fairbridge Festival would like to thank everyone who has supported the Festival and we are hopeful of bringing it back again in the future. Watch this space!”

The sad news comes after several challenging years for the popular music and arts festival. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent border closures forced the cancellation of Fairbridge Festival in 2020 and 2022, while the 2021 festival was limited to Western Australian acts.

The board was then forced to cancel the 2023 event when concerns were raised about the impact the festival was having on the historic Fairbridge Village. New restrictions included limiting capacity by approximately 50% and not being able to utilise some venues on site, forcing Fairbridge to look for a new home.

Earlier this year, Folkworld announced the festival would return in 2024 in the new location of Edenvale Heritage Precinct and was scheduled to run from Friday, April 5, to Sunday, April 7. 

The cancellation adds to concerns about the future of music festivals in the country. Another one of Western Australia’s most popular regional music events, Groovin the Moo, announced its cancellation last month, just weeks after revealing its 2024 line-up.