Gum Ball Likely Taking A Year's Break

Hunter Valley-based boutique festival The Gum Ball has wrapped for another year, its tenth iteration concluding to acclaim from all corners, so it is on somewhat of a bittersweet note that the announcement has come that festival organisers Matt Johnston and fiancée Jess will be putting the event on hold, likely for at least a year, while they tend to other personal and professional pursuits.

Although a possible hiatus for the festival - held annually at Dashville and this year featuring artists such as Ed Kuepper, Hoodoo Gurus, Adalita, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Jinja Safari, among many others - has been bandied about since before this year's event, their most recent position seems to indicate that Gum Ball 2015 is indeed no longer proceeding, for good reason.

"What I do want to tell you is that excitedly Jess and I are getting married early next year,” Johnston, also known simply as Magpie, said in a statement.

“No exact plans have been made for that as yet, though there is a bit of a desire to go on an extended holiday at a time that would otherwise be peak Gum Ball preparation time.

“Perhaps we can source someone to help us make it all happen, or perhaps we just decide to miss a year and come back in 2016. The thing is you can't do this event in halves and, as has been the case for the last 10 years, you can't really expect to have much downtime when you take it on."

This is especially the case when such a festival is not the only thing they have on the fly – their impending event PigSty in July, which is billed as something of a half-size, 18+ only Gum Ball, is this year taking place on July 5.

Of course, even if PigSty In July helps fill the void, you can guarantee the Gum Ball festival faithful will be keen for the event to return soon, especially given its more noble qualities – 2014's event raised more than $3000 for the Black Dog Institute and was able to give rise to an extension on the Dashville ramp, the installation of a permanent shower block, and a weather shed.