Bluesfest creditors owed $7 million after festival's sudden cancellation

Liquidator Worrells has delivered its financial report on Bluesfest Enterprises and Bluesfest Byron Bay to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, revealing the companies owe more than $7 million to over 900 creditors while holding only $300,664 in available funds. The Byron Bay music festival, which ran from 1990 and attracted over 100,000 attendees at last year's event, abruptly cancelled its 2025 edition — scheduled for April 2–5 with Split Enz and Earth, Wind & Fire as headliners — just three weeks before it was due to open. Festival director Peter Noble cited rising production, logistics, insurance, and touring costs in a challenging live events environment as the reasons the event was no longer viable. Suppliers such as Tweed Heads-based Uniform Print Lab are among those bearing significant losses; co-owner Linda Sutton says her business is out of pocket more than $90,000 for merchandise including 6,000 Bluesfest-branded T-shirts that were never paid for, forcing the business to take out loans and reduce staffing. Photographs of unsold merchandise — including caps, stubby holders, and boxed goods — underscore the tangible financial damage to vendors. Noble, who received a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2016 for services to the music industry, has declined to comment publicly on the liquidation. The festival had previously been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the 2020 and 2021 editions cancelled at short notice by the New South Wales government.