Gum Ball to Possibly Take a Break in 2014

Aussie festival lovers, get your best Queen voice on. It looks like another one’s biting the dust (for a year at least). The Hunter Valley's Gum Ball organisers Matt Johnston and his fiancée Jess have just announced that there’s every chance the event won’t be happening next year.

We shouldn’t be too hard on the live music-loving couple, though. After ten years of providing stages for the likes of Jinja Safari, Ed Kuepper and Turin Brakes, they’re going to take some time out to tie the knot. “What I do want to tell you is that excitedly Jess and I are getting married early next year,” Johnston said.

The statement begs the obvious question: why not kill two birds with one stone and get hitched at Gum Ball, in front of thousands of loyal festival fans?

Not the plan, apparently. All might not be lost quite yet, however. Johnston did suggest the possibility of outsourcing the organisational frenzy to another party. “No exact plans have been made... as yet,” he explained. “Though, there is a bit of a desire to go on an extended holiday at a time that would otherwise be peak Gum Ball preparation time.

“Perhaps we can source someone to help us make it all happen... The thing is you can’t do this event in halves and, as has been the case for the last ten years, you can’t really expect to have much downtime when you take it on.”

If this, combined with Sound Summit’s recent hiatus announcement, has you crying all the rivers, don’t despair entirely. After all, Matt and Jess aren’t leaving us totally high and dry – PigSty in July is coming up on July 5. And, given Gum Ball’s popularity, it’s highly likely to be back on the festival calendar come 2016.

Via TheMusic.com.au.