Another Aussie Music Festival Calls It Quits, Industry Bloodbath Shows No Sign Of Slowing Down

Another day, another Aussie music festival is cancelled. Is anybody sensing a pattern here? Just mere days after Victoria’s Castle Festival and Western Australia’s On The Bright Side pulled the plug, New South Wales have got a taste of the ever difficult festival market with Coaster Festival announcing it would be going on hiatus indefinitely.

The New South Wales Central Coast’s pre-eminent music festival, Gosford’s Coaster Festival, had been running for four years and last year had an all-Australian lineup headlined by  the likes of Jebediah, the John Butler Trio and Little Red.

But with a difficult festival market that has seen a virtual bloodbath over the last two years, Coaster has decided it’s best to not hold an event in 2012 and has made no plans as of yet to return in the future.

The sad news for fans of the festival and central coast residents was broken on the official Facebook page earlier today, with organisers writing:

“To all of our Coaster friends and everyone that has come to one of our shows over the past four years, we wanted to let you know that we will not be running Coaster in 2012. We are looking to return sometime in the future and thank every single person who helped make Coaster so much fun to be a part of.”

Fans reacted with a mixture of sadness and anger, with fan Tom Brock writing, “That sucks last year was one of the best festivals i’ve ever been to!”. “I already had an outfit for this year planned, ” added Taylor Nash. “Ruined my dreams, thanks coaster :(”

The news comes as just another in a series of festivals plagued by problems this year. Including Supafest‘s super failure, Good Vibrations calling it a day for another year, and who could forget the disastrous Soundwave Revolution which fell over in a spectacular fashion just weeks out from the event.

Does On The Bright Side‘s cancellation mean we can expect more ruined festivals in 2012 than last year? Twelve months in which Rewind 80sFestival failed to take off, the Great Southern Blues festival cut their losses,Funk & Tunes Festival bit the dust and Mission To Launch also failed to launch with the festival collapsing due to ticket sales.