A New South Wales music festival has been cancelled just a week out from the event, and the organisers say it’s “another example of the government’s war on festivals”.
Mountain Sounds festival was due to be held on the central coast next weekend, however the organisers announced it would not be going ahead on Saturday
They said they had agreed to cut down the size of their site and cancel more than 20 acts to make sure they met newly-imposed safety, licensing and security costs, however, were blindsided when they were told one week out they would have to pay an extra $200,000 for 45 police officers, far more than their originally quoted 11.
They say this is the way things seem to be going, with one of the government’s best weapons being the ability to force excessive costs onto events in order to phase them out.