Homebake Cancelled After Fans ‘Reject New Format’

This year's Homebake Festival has been cancelled after moving to the Sydney Opera House steps and expanding to a new three-day format.

Despite a strong line-up of Australian talent, the promoters of the iconic Sydney festival have announced that they are deciding against going ahead with the venue after fans failed to support the new format. They added that they're left with too little time to revert back to the festival's spiritual home, the Domain.

Co-promoted by IMC, Chugg Entertainment and Village Sounds, today's statement indicated that they moved away from The Domain because a competing festival had planned to use the same venue.

Until its cancellation, the Harvest Festival was to take place at The Domain Saturday 16 November.

“Homebake 2013 has proven to be a difficult beast to produce and promote due to scheduling issues with our ancestral home at the Domain,” a statement said today.

“For reasons beyond our control or desire, and after a 15 year run, we were advised that for this year, the Domain had also confirmed another music festival that appealed to a similar audience and scheduled to run a mere two weeks before our proposed Homebake date.”

The resulting “commercial implications” of having two festivals at the domain in such a close proximity the festivals said “reluctantly our hand was forced to reconfigure and relocate Homebake.”

A month after that announcement, “it has become apparent based on the feedback from social media sites and the box office that the traditional Homebake fans have rejected this change in format from one day to three nights and the change in venue.”

They add, "What is achingly ironic is the reason that forced the change in venue, and with it the format, cancelled shortly before Homebake 2013's launch, but by then it was simply too late to revert back to our true home."

They describe their decision as “heartbreaking stuff”.

Birds Of Tokyo, The Presets, Paul Kelly, Bernard Fanning, Gurrumul, Eskimo Joe and more were scheduled to perform.

Tickets will be automatically refunded by the Sydney Opera House while Oztix customers are urged to contact them for details.