2021 Queenscliff Music Festival cancelled

THE 24th edition of the Queenscliff Music Festival (QMF) has been pushed to 2022, with organisers conceding time had run out to hold the festival this year.

In an email to supporters and ticketholders this morning, festival director Andrew Orvis said the team had made the difficult decision to not proceed with the QMF in 2021 and instead postpone it to November 25-27, 2022.

The 2020 QMF was also cancelled, and Mr Orvis said the QMF team had set about organising the 2021 event early this year “with great hope and optimism”.

“Things were looking extremely positive in Australia at the time, so we pushed ahead, booked the acts, put tickets on sale, made plans… and then COVID reared its ugly head again.”

He said QMF had been exploring all options to allow a festival to go ahead in November, including running a demonstration event in a reduced format, showing how events could safely return with measures such as proof of vaccination and social distancing.

“Sadly, time has run out, and without a Victorian Public Events Framework in place against which our event application can be assessed or access to event cancellation insurance our event cannot proceed.

“It’s a risky business to start organising an event, spend significant amounts of money in advance, and then have the potential for it to be shut down at the last minute. If this was to happen to QMF it would threaten our ability to be here in 2022.

“It absolutely seems like we’re nearly there with events… but sadly the lead time to pull something off is just too great for us to keep pushing ahead.”

Mr Orvis said COVID-19 vaccination rate projections showed Victoria would reach 80 per cent in early November, and the state government’s road map suggested that events would return but potentially not until early 2022.

“As such we are once again busy working on some Plan B (or is it C/D/E now?) options for this Summer. We are hoping to be able to bring music back and gather with you all in Queenscliff in some way in early 2022.

“Unfortunately, we are not able to announce anything right now like we had hoped, but please stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks and months.”

All ticket holders will be contacted separately via email regarding the ticket transfer and refund process.

Existing QMF 2021 tickets will automatically transfer and become valid for QMF 2022 unless ticket holders want a refund.

“We would encourage those of you who can to transfer your ticket to QMF 2022,” Mr Orvis said.

“A huge amount of gratitude to those of you who will be hanging on to your tickets purchased way back in March 2020!

“Holding on to your tickets is a huge help for us, and guarantees you won’t pay more for a ticket next year.

“We won’t be offering tickets at a price cheaper than you’ve already purchased them for.”