Embattled Pitch Festival To Return In 2025 After Punter Death & Cancellation

Pitch Music and Arts Festival confirmed in an email to this year’s patrons today that it will be returning in 2025 with details to be confirmed ‘over the coming weeks’. The event will once again be at its Grampian Plains site.

The event held in March this year was marred by three drug overdoses and one death before being cancelled on the second day due to bushfire concerns during heatwave conditions. Patrons already onsite were forced to leave and were granted “70-100%” refunds a month later.

The event organisers Untitled Group explained to patrons that they had reflected on the 2024 event and that there would be changes.

“Our reflections on last year’s event have now evolved into actioning our learnings. Whilst there are elements beyond our influence (such as weather conditions), we’ve been focusing our attention on aspects that are within our control”.

Organisers have upgraded their emergency management plans, implemented more shade and drink stations to address heat concerns, upgraded on-ground communication with “helper hubs” and speaker systems, upgraded wifi and mobile coverage and will provide more “harm reduction” and crowd care.

The 2025 event will be its eighth, with the event becoming one of the most popular in the Victorian festival calendar. The melting of music and art has become a successful recipe despite the unprecedented challenges of this year.

2024 patrons will get the first opportunity to buy tickets for next year’s event before a ballot process. With several festivals like Splendour in the Grass faltering earlier this year, Australians have regained their appetite for great music events with Laneway selling out its Sydney and Melbourne events in its first day.