After heatwaves and thunderstorms played havoc with music festivals during the northern summer, Australia’s live sector is steeling itself for turbulence during our summer festival season.
September was the second hottest on record. Meteorologists have fallen short of suggesting Australia is heading for the hottest summer of all time.
But the Bureau of Meteorology has indicated well-above-average maximum and minimum temperatures. Where these might strike remains unpredictable for festival promoters.
Elevated bushfire dangers, extended heatwaves, thunderstorms, flooding, severe drought conditions, and tropical cyclones are expected from October to April as El Nino peaks.
“The question is not if climate-related cancellations will happen, because they are already happening,” points out Green Music Australia CEO Berish Bilander.
“The question is how more frequently will they happen before the industry gets better at adapting instead of being forced to adapt.
“On average there are more and more festivals that are being hit by extreme weather. It’s costing them money and it’s putting their audiences at risk at times.”
In some cases, there has to be a change in attitude by promoters.
Bilander says: “We’ll definitely see more experimentation, as to when festivals happen. But moving everything out of summer is not the answer.
“The bigger question is if we’re designing festivals for the climate that we actually have rather than the climate we used to have.
“There might be an area that is climate-resilient with less bushfires and extreme heat. I think the organisers have to get a lot better at really understanding the site, the risks on that site, and adjusting appropriately.”
Associate Professor Catherine Strong, of RMIT Melbourne’s School of Media and Communication, comments, “Given what we’ve seen in Europe and North America when this weather system was just getting started up, I think we would be very naïve to think it’s not looking to be a very serious situation.”
She adds that with the rise of fuel and ticket prices and cost of living pressures, “It’s going to be a very tight festival scene anyway.
“We might not immediately connect these with climate. But they all are because they come from the same set of problems that we have.”
Report
Strong was one of the authors of Creative Australia’s ground breaking Climate Resilience And Australian Festivals report.
Published last September, it confirmed how events were increasingly facing disruption, faced changed audience behaviour like those coming later in the day, and were having to budget for extra infrastructure such as temporary shading, cooling stations, and misting equipment.
It also found that organisers were contemplating moving dates to spring or autumn, not scheduling acts in the hottest part of the day, and expanding risk management to handle sudden weather changes and emergency evacuation.
These are essential if promoters avoid having to cancel.
Strong notes: “Not only is cancelling expensive and disappointing for everybody but increasingly it is getting harder and harder to get cancellation insurance.
“Insurance for festivals is already high. But Creative Australia did a report looking at insurance for events last year.
“One of the things they found was that a third of people running festivals thought that insurance premiums going up was having a major impact on their events.
“So to get lower premiums, it might mean organisers going to the insurance companies and saying ‘We have moved from the middle of summer to autumn, so we’re at a much lower risk of extreme heat’. Everyone is looking at different things they can do to keep both risks and costs as low as possible.”
Funding has been approved for a sequel to Climate Resilience And Australian Festivals, collated over three years with a number of industry partners.
“We’re looking at all the different parts of the festival sector in Australia and trying to map out where the risks are, what the connections are between the various stakeholders in the sector to try and work out how to make Australia festivals as resilient as possible against the effects of these things.”
“One of the things to do is to work out what it is that people value about festivals.
“Rather than coming at it from a ‘We have to protect the economic impact’ or ‘We have to keep everything running as is’, we really want to get to grips with what it is people get out of festivals, and how that can be protected even if means that the way people find it is very different,.
“So we might look at, ‘Are there different ways that festivals are delivered’, or ‘Is there something else that is in a really different form that will have the same positives for people’.”
As part of providing the big picture in moving towards the sustainable, a road map will provide as much information as possible for organisers to plan well ahead.
Challenge
Green Music Australia’s Rain, Heat, Repeat: How Music Fans Are Experiencing Extreme Weather, also released last year, identified a challenge for summer festivals – the changing conduct of Australian festival-goers.
Of respondents aged 18 to 60 in the study, one-third now consult weather forecasts before they’d buy tickets. Already 13% are going to less summer festivals to avoid the hassle of thunderstorms and bushfires. One in three won’t go if the mercury looks like it's rising to 35 degrees.
After all, 68% had experienced extreme heat at a music event within a 12 month period. The report noted over 50 music festivals were fully or partially cancelled since 2015 due to extreme weather, and over 26 events wiped out in a single week in 2025 from the risks of Cyclone Alfred.
In a stat alarming to the live sector, 34% of respondents are cautious about buying tickets… up to 44% who are regular attendees and would have been more likely affected by festival crises.
it is interesting to see how many promoters of the 2026/7 summer festivals responded – or plan to do so – of recommendations offered in Rain, Heat, Repeat.
These include investing in sustainable infrastructure and climate-safe event design, actively lobbying to urgently phase out fossil fuel extraction and accelerate the transition to 100% renewable energy, and tapping on First Nations’ deep knowledge of sustainable land and water management.
Bilander says investments in climate-adaptive infrastructure —such as heat shelters, shaded areas, flood-resistant staging, and accessible water refill stations – are relatively cheap.
“But others like drainage and insurance are costly, and these are what’s going to hit the smaller festivals hardest. They’ll need financial support for that.”
Green Music Australia is lobbying all levels of government about incorporating climate action with their arts and culture strategies, the way Victoria and Western Australia have done.
“It should be a central policy. Not something that individual organisers are left to sort on their own. We have known about climate change for decades. Now we’re seeing the risks are unfolding in real time. The stuff scientists were warning us about is happening.”
He emphasises: “One of the things the festival sector needs to be doing is to work with their audiences to build trust.
“People need to know if they are buying a ticket, they’re not putting their money at risk. That there will be good processes in place where they will be looked after if something goes wrong.”
Trust
Trust and communication are two things that have sustained the family-run Outback Music Festival Group, which operates Birdsville’s Big Red Bash and Broken Hill’s Mundi Mundi Bash.
Both were chosen to be staged in areas with little rainfall. But both have been subject to disruptive flooding. The live sector expressed its admiration for the way Outback Music worked in close contact with ticketholders.
“We’ve always been big on open-ness, transparency and honesty,” CEO Greg Donovan tells The Music this week. “If there’s an issue you keep your lines of communication open, in a timely manner.
“Because people want to know what’s going on. We have full-time communications people on site and through the year.
“You can’t buy trust, you have to earn it. It’s the most valuable thing in any business – your name, your brand, and what you stand for.
“We always made sure there was enough cash for people who wanted refunds immediately. Some operators might struggle or they wait for insurance to come through but that can take six months.”
Big Red Bash 2026 was cancelled when heavy storms dropped a year’s amount of rain in a matter of days in autumn, and submerged the site. It was clear the site would not dry out by July. By that stage, 90% of the tickets were sold.
Plans to move it to another location were shared with ticketholders. The response from them was that not experiencing Big Red among the massive sand dunes – not to mention concern about high fuel prices – would stop them from attending.
The event was cancelled. “We gave the ticketholders three options. Instant refunds. Hold on to the tickets. Transfer them to the Mundi Mundi Bash. We’ll ask you in six months to see if you’ve changed your minds. If you do want a refund, that’s fine, we’ll get the money to you.”
The Australian Live Music Business Council (ALMBC) lauded how Outback Music “responded with clarity and professionalism, surveying patrons and partners, exploring relocation options and ultimately prioritising safety over costs as they decided to call off the event in 2026.”
It compared the financial issues left behind when Bluesfest went under around that time.
Yesterday, The Music reported that Big Red Bash announced that 2027 would be its last, with a star-studded line-up to wave goodbye. The remote site was no longer viable: it would cost an extra $750,000 in operating costs.
The acts won’t be the only reason that Donovan is confident that the usual 11,000 will come. Usually 60% of them are from overseas or around Australia. It delivered $15 million to $20 million each year to the remote Outback Queensland economy.
“Right now we’re launching a music festival (Big Red 2027) which has its site six feet under water,” Donovan chuckles. “We’ve just been up there and checked the site out on a boat!
“That’s where trust comes in. People think you’re crazy for going ahead with it. But we’re backing local knowledge, scientific modelling and Bureau of Meteorology evaporation data for the region - that regularly experiences 40+ degree days across summer months - and will put tickets on sale on November 12.
“We tell people, by a ticket. You can pay up fully or do deposits. If we’re wrong and it doesn’t dry up, you’ll all get your money back.:
In the meantime, Outback Music is concentrating on Mundi Mundi Bash, to take place August 19-21 at Belmont Station on Mundi Mundi Plains.
This year there was a drama: it quickly sold out its 15,000 tickets. But flooding meant that 5,000 couldn’t get in until the last day. It was devastating for us to make that decision. But we made it clear we were trying our best for them, and we put on shows for them in nearby pubs.
“It barely rains there. But it got a record 15mm in 2023 just before the gates opened, which makes a big difference to the ground. In 2024 there was another record rainfall of 17mm.
“We got through 2023 and 2024, it was a bit unpleasant and disruptive and difficult.
“But unlike the Big Red site, with the Mundi Mundi site we’ve spent about $2 million with lots of improvement – drainage, gravelling the roads and the grounds, and toilets.
“What 2026 taught us is where else we can make site improvements. We’ve put aside a budget of $300,000 to $400,000 for those.”
Another festival which had its share of rainfall was the Deni Ute Muster (NSW) turning the site into a mud bath. But the festival’s General Manager, Vicky Lowry, says it didn’t dampen the vibe.
“To welcome 19,000 people to Deniliquin and see them embrace the weekend, regardless of the weather, was fantastic. There were gumboots, muddy Utes and plenty of wet weather gear, but most importantly there were smiles everywhere.”
Northern
Over the northern summer heatwave as temperatures climbed to 38 degrees, a dozen festivals were partially or fully cancelled.
Notable axing included Defqon 1 (Nethertlands), Lollapalooza Paris, Desert Hearts (US), Hangout Music (US), Retro C Trap (France), Northern Lights Lantern (Canada), Sonus (Croatia), and Amsterdam Open Air.
In one weekend, heavy rain, high winds and coastal flooding in Northeast USA saw cancellations of shows by AC/DC, Ed Sheeran, and Oceans Calling, as well as festivals such as All Things Go, Global Citizen, and CBGB.
After a successive number of flooding on the 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, that hosts Bonnaroo, its organisers announced it is a no-show in 2027 as it “needs a break to rest and recover."
A BBC report on the UK’s hottest summer on record detailed how musicians struggled to play on stages while singers came close to fainting.
One musician, Rhys Hurd, had guitar strings snapping, while he also needed to reapply sun cream and drink water.
"It's a real niche thing for a guitar player, but I have broken probably like six or seven strings," he said. "The heat has kind of had a big impact on some equipment that you wouldn't necessarily think it would."
Let’s see if this scenario repeats in what could be Australia’s hottest summer on record.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
