Organisers of NSW music festival PSYFARI have announced its 2019 show, also its tenth anniversary and last-ever event, will no longer be going ahead this September.
In a statement posted to Facebook overnight, organisers took aim at the state government, claiming the scrutiny music festivals across Australia have come under following a number of drug overdoses, as well as other factors, led to PSYFARI's cancellation.
"When a state government's hobbies include shutting down entertainment districts and enthusiastically enforcing noise complaints, events can't be held too close to cities or built-up areas, meanwhile the same authorities complain that events in rural settings are too remote," the post reads.
"While the attack on music festivals is more public than ever before, this has been a battle we've been fighting for years, at times behind closed doors. The fight is usually with those who have never attended such an event and truly don't understand what it's all about, yet they've shown no mercy in wiping these events out in order to make a political point.
"Either they don't seem to understand the desire for freedom and the desire to be part of a community, or they do understand and feel threatened by this."
Calls for pill testing at Australian music festivals have continued to grow in recent times, after five people have died in as many months from suspected drug overdoses.
The NSW government has also been urged to launch a "pilot pill testing trial" at Ultra Music Festival Australia in Sydney later this month.
"Excessive rules, bans on BYO alcohol, overly heavy police presences, this is not what we had in mind," PSYFARI organisers said.
"Not to mention the ongoing increased costs in running events, which will push up ticket prices. Festivals with a ticket price of $500 are also not what we had in mind, but it seems likely that this is the way things are going, with one of the government’s best weapons being the ability to force excessive costs onto events in order to phase them out.
"We are unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when festivals are the new scapegoat of a failed government and their failed war on drugs."
Read the full statement below.
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