Reggae, soul, funk and electronic music festival Return to Rio has announced its cancellation for 2024, citing a 529 per cent increase in costs thanks to NSW Police.
In a statement posted to Facebook, festival organisers detailed the costs it takes to run a festival in today’s climate, revealing the 2023 iteration of Return to Rio incurred over $300K in extra costs.
This amount was said to have come from police and medical costs, which have been bumped up for no obvious reason.
“After a lot of thought, and with very heavy hearts we’re sad to announce Return to Rio 2024 won’t be going ahead,” the cancellation post read.
“Since the introduction of the NSW Festival Act in 2019, almost every electronic music festival in NSW has been deemed ‘subject’ (or ‘high risk’).
“This means that NSW Police and Health have full control over how much a festival pays for policing and medical, as well as any other extra costs they deem necessary for harm minimisation (e.g. riot squads, police boats, interrogation areas, strip search facilities, CCTV…the list goes on).”
The post then reveals that organisers would have had to increase ticket prices by at least $100 for organisers to even profit off the event.
“For a small family-run business, this makes it almost impossible not to run at a loss,” read the post.
“With so many people struggling financially right now, passing these crazy-high fees onto you is not something we’re prepared to do.”
Organisers, however, remained adamant that this cancellation (in conjunction with all the others from this year) would send a message to the NSW Government, and Return to Rio would return in 2025.
This news comes after the rather surprising announcement that Splendour in the Grass and Groovin the Moo (two of Australia’s biggest music festivals) would not be commencing this year.
While Groovin the Moo organisers directly cited “poor ticket sales” as the reason for its cancellation, Splendour remained a little more mysterious, blaming “unexpected events” without any further elaboration.
It’s possible these festivals were subject to cost increases in the same way Return to Rio was, although there are plenty of other reasons why a festival would find it hard to run effectively in the year of our lord 2024.
A girl just wants to dance to some tunes again without having to move to Berlin. Can we pretty please have just a CRUMB of a music festival in NSW?
