Esoteric Music Festival 2025 Confirmed To Go Ahead
"The site will be ready for festival goers on Thursday when gates open and the party begins," festival organisers teased.
Esoteric Music Festival (Credit: Wink Photography)
After a stressful ordeal, it’s been confirmed that the Esoteric Music Festival will go ahead this year.
Last week, The Music reported that the Victorian “psychedelic music, arts and lifestyle gathering” event was in danger of being cancelled after the local council recommended refusing its planning permit.
Esoteric’s five-year planning permit expired after the 2024 edition of the festival. In September, event organisers submitted a new ten-year permit, which needed approval before this year’s event took place.
However, the Buloke Shire Council advised festival organisers to cancel the event. It was recommended that the planning permit be refused due to “significant health and safety concerns” after a major outbreak of Shigellosis impacted last year’s festival.
The local council cited last year’s outbreak as a reason not to proceed with this year’s event. It also alleged that the event didn’t adhere to a previous Place of Public Entertainment Occupancy Permit (POPE-OP) and a current Building Order, which were additional reasons for recommending the refusal of the ten-year permit.
The turnaround arrived last night (3 March), when the Buloke Shire Council voted in favour of hosting this year’s event over the Labour Day public holiday long weekend in the town of Donald. The festival will take place from Friday, 7 March, to Tuesday, 11 March.
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Esoteric Music Festival organiser Sam Goldsmith thanked the council for approving the Planning Permit and showed appreciation to the local community for supporting the event.
“This year will be the 8th year that the Esoteric Music Festival will be held in this small Victorian town, and we are so grateful for the local groundswell, the Buloke Shire Council and our beloved Esoteric community for their support in making it happen,” Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith continued, “Ensuring festival goers are safe is our number one priority and we have demonstrated for the better part of a decade our competency as a safe, compliant, and well-run festival. Now that we have Council planning approval, the festival build can progress, and the site will be ready for festival goers on Thursday when gates open and the party begins.
“Tickets are nearly sold-out and the local community, who faced a nervous wait on this, can now go about their plans to prepare for the influx of tourists from all over the world.”
To access tickets to the nearly sold-out event, head to the Esoteric Festival website. Over 7,000 punters are expected to descend on Donald for the festival—the largest event in the Wimmera Mallee tourism region of Victoria.
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