Southeast Queensland's New Sandtunes Music Festival Has Been Cancelled
It was set to feature Travis Scott, Logic, Chvrches and Carly Rae Jepsen.
If your end-of-month plans included a trip to the Gold Coast to see Travis Scott, Logic, Chvrches and Carly Rae Jepsen, then we have bad news: Sandtunes, the new festival with all three leading the lineup, has been cancelled.
The event has endured a tumultuous run since it was first announced in July, when it was billed as a two-day seaside music fest at Coolangatta Beach. In September, "after listening to responses from the local community", organisers moved the festival to the definitely not-by-the-shore Metricon Stadium. But it seems that patrons weren't impressed with the change of venue, even when ticket prices were slashed to help reignite interest.
As the event notes, "without sand between our punters' toes, the very notion of the beachside festival in a stadium meant low sales". As a result, the debut fest won't be going ahead — on its scheduled dates of Saturday, November 30 and Sunday, December 1, or at all.
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That also means that the fest's plans not just to run this year, but to become an annual part of southeast Queensland's event calendar, have fallen by the wayside.
"This whole concept started with bringing a great music festival to the beach which we see happening the world over in major locations like Spain (Barcelona Beach Festival) and Alabama (Hangout Music Festival). I'm disappointed because I believed this could have grown year-on-year into something really big but unfortunately, we weren't even able to get it off the ground here," said Paul Dainty, president and CEO of promoters TEG Dainty.
While it's hardly surprising that the change of location away from the beach dampened music fans' enthusiasm, Sandtunes' timing in general wasn't fantastic, with the fest's dates overlapping with part of Schoolies.
The rest of event's lineup was also slated to feature Juice WRLD, Dean Lewis, Sampa the Great, Tkay Maidza, Cub Sport, Kait, Kwame, WAAX, Kian, Alice Ivy, Genesis Owusu and Saint Lane.
For folks keen to see Scott, it's especially unwelcome news — Sandtunes would've been the Texas-born rapper's only Australian performance this year. It seems that Carly Rae Jepsen's Aussie tour will still go head, just not in Queensland, with tickets for her Sydney and Melbourne shows still on sale at the time of writing. As for Logic, Sydney and Melbourne ticket sales have "been postponed while we work through some tour logistics", although co-presenter Triple J reports that his visit won't be going head.
Sandtunes ticketholders who purchased by credit or debit card will receive refunds automatically within ten working days, while those who purchased in an agency will be contacted by phone with a fortnight to make refund arrangements.
For more information about Sandtunes' cancellation, visit the festival website.
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