September 14, 2022 | By Bronwen Largier
Australia’s government weather service, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), has just declared a third straight summer will be impacted by a La Niña event bringing wetter weather and northern New South Wales music festival Festival of the Sun in Port Macquarie has called off its December event over weather fears.
The festival made the call days before the BoM made the official declaration on La Niña, ending months of speculation.
Festival of the Sun organisers posted on their social media accounts over the weekend announcing the cancellation of the festival, saying it had already notified all ticket holders that they would be getting a full refund, with tickets not being carried forward to 2023.
“Our concerns on the forecast of another…season of La Niña this summer are very real,” organisers said in their statement.
“La Niña has devastated our east coast community over the [last] few seasons, water tables are still at an all-time high and we believe that the atrocious weather forecasted in November and December for the east coast between [the] Central Coast and Byron Bay is just not a risk we are willing to take for our fans, our artists and our crew.
“We decided to make this decision with enough lead time to minimise any travel plan inconvenience.”
During this winter, even after the last La Niña event was said to be over by the BoM, iconic Byron Bay festival Splendour in the Grass was forced to cancel its opening day due to heavy rain.
