Pack up your tents: Falls Festival just canned its 2020 event

“Consider this a raincheck”: Falls Festival has cancelled its 2020 event, slated for this December, in light of current COVID-19 restrictions.

Sadly, another festival bites the dust for 2020. Beloved Aussie mainstay, Falls Festival, has revealed that it won’t be going ahead with this year’s edition, scheduled to take place, as always, over New Year’s Eve.

It comes after the festival team announced earlier this year that they would be putting on a special “home-grown” lineup in attempts to adapt to the current pandemic situation. However, in the end, it seems logistics may have proved too much – and honestly, who can blame them? Looks like it’s time to put those tents back in storage and prepare for a homebound NYE, pandemic-style.

Taking to social media, the Falls Festival team announced the news, describing their “optimism” back in May around “forging ahead and supporting our local industry with an all Aussie edition of Falls Festival. “

“However, given the current status of things and border restrictions in place, it won’t be possible to hold Falls Festival in our regular New Year’s timeframe,” they continued.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Dear Falls Fam, #FallsFestival will no longer be taking place this year. In May, as the nation seemed to be moving into recovery mode, we were optimistic about forging ahead and supporting our local industry with an all Aussie edition of Falls Festival. We were especially excited to reunite many live music fans, get industry crew back on the job, and contribute to the economies of the communities where Falls takes place. However, given the current status of things and border restrictions in place, it won’t be possible to hold Falls Festival in our regular New Year’s timeframe. As we work with government stakeholders and key agencies to get Falls Festival back in the calendar, as always your safety is our priority. Consider this a raincheck, and please know we will be back with more information as it comes to hand. In the meantime, we’re sending love to our Victorian Falls community. Hang in there! And to all of our Falls fam, stay well and safe. We hope to be with you all again soon. ❤️ Big Love Falls xx 📸: Dave Kan

A post shared by Falls Festival (@fallsfestival) on Aug 25, 2020 at 4:00pm PDT

People are understandably disappointed, however, with current border closures, the decision can’t come as that much of a surprise. Falls Festival usually takes place annually over four different locations including Lorne (Vic), Marion Bay (Tas), Byron Bay (NSW), and Fremantle (WA), with artists travelling between states to appear at the various iterations.

I guess we’ll just have to wait until 2021 – when we’ll all be another year older and most likely none the wiser.

Bugger: the Falls Festival is off for this year. They had planned to take place with an all Aussie line-up in Dec/Jan, but “given the current status of things and border restrictions in place, it won’t be possible to hold Falls Festival in our regular New Year’s timeframe.”

— cameron adams (@cameron_adams) August 25, 2020

Unsurprisingly, @fallsofficial has been cancelled for this year. Another blow to the Byron Shire economy.
What will New Year’s Eve look like without any large gatherings allowed? #fallsfestival

— Cloe Jager (@Cloe_Jager) August 25, 2020

watching coachella, afropunk, vic falls festival & travel vlogs bc i miss outside. 💔

— 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔴𝔞 🖤 (@cxtiwa) August 20, 2020