Bay Dreams, Splore, Maunganui festivals taking a hiatus

Bay Dreams, once New Zealand’s largest music festival, will not go ahead in 2025 announced Tauranga-based promoters Mitch Lowe and Toby Burrows. The festival, originally slated for Tauranga and Queenstown, faced challenges due to rising costs, difficulties securing international headliners, shifting festival-goer expectations, and a drop in ticket sales amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Bay Dreams, which began in 2016, grew quickly to host tens of thousands of attendees, peaking in popularity with acts like Cardi B, Diplo, and Tyler, the Creator. By 2019, it had expanded to two locations, attracting over 50,000 attendees across its sites. However, rising costs in the festival industry, coupled with steep increases in artist fees, have in the promotors’ opinion made large-scale, multi-stage festivals increasingly difficult to sustain.

The promoters spent much of early 2024 attempting to secure Kendrick Lamar as the headliner, but costs became prohibitive as Lamar’s popularity surged. Lowe and Burrows ultimately decided to pause the festival, calling the move a ‘hiatus’ rather than an end, intending to preserve Bay Dreams’ reputation.

The promoters noted recent changes in the festival landscape, pointing to the success of smaller, more exclusive events like UK artist Fred again..’s sold-out shows in New Zealand. This trend has inspired Lowe and Burrows to pivot away from large-scale festivals. Instead, they will bring Australian dance artist Fisher for standalone performances in Hagley Park and Victoria Park in January, a format they believe aligns better with current demand.

In the meantime, Lowe and Burrows are still involved in other festival ventures this season, including the New Year’s drum-and-bass event Famous Last Words in Tauranga and the indie festival Le Currents in Taupō. They believe the decision to scale back will foster a more sustainable business model.

Sustainability was a key factor behind the cancellation of Splore, announced earlier in the year. Following a challenging season in 2024 in which they failed to break even, festival producer Fryderyk Kublikowski confirmed economic factors were the primary drivers behind the decision, with ticket sales falling below expectations, creating financial strain. He noted the practice of covering previous losses with future sales has become a common but unsustainable practice in the festival industry.

Despite the 2024 financial loss, Splore covered all costs, paying performers, suppliers, and other obligations in full.  Operating with a core team of twenty staff plus many contractors, Kublikowski has publicly acknowledged that cancelling the 2025 festival was a difficult decision and that they were working to support the team with freelance opportunities during the pause. Unlike Bay Dreams, Splore has dates set for February 2026, underpinned by a firm belief that this mainstay of the summer festival season for the last twenty five years will be stronger for taking a year off.

Maunganui Waterfront Festival which attracts crowds up to 5000 to the Far North every March, is another festival reflecting on its future, with phrases such as smaller format being bandied around. Organised by Doubtless Bay Promotion Inc, Somersault Event & Project Management director Jodi Betts announced in August the tough decision to cancel the 2025 festival. As well as personal reasons preventing her from continuing in the role of promotor after twelve years at the helm, she also cited the financial strain of organising the festival as being a challenge for the DBPI members due to the tough economy. Acknowledging the disappointment felt by festival supporters, she urged the community to contribute ideas for a way forward or to get involved.

New Zealand is not alone with Australia, the UK, Europe, and the USA seeing a significant number of major festivals cancel including NASS Festival, Splendour in the Grass, Riverside Festival Glasgow, Lollapalooza Paris, WE ARE FSTVL, Groovin the Moo, and Firefly Music Festival. Asking if 2024 is the ‘Year that the Festival’ died, government bodies, academics, and industry representatives are analysing the market. Inflation-driven increases in production costs for essentials like security, insurance, equipment, and artist fees are identified as a major factor, alongside the rise in the cost of living impacting ticket sales.

Bay Dreams promotors Lowe and Burrrows’ thesis that there is a shift in consumer habits also gets airtime, although there are any number of interpretations. Young people drink less, take less drugs, are socially isolated and are less amped about going to music festivals; the proliferation of music streaming has reshaped listener habits with algorithm-driven platforms have narrowed audience tastes and reduced the appeal of multi-genre lineups. The list goes on: more extreme weather, over saturation of the market, a lingering effect of the pandemic making people reluctant to attend crowded public events.

Yet with other Summer festivals reportedly bucking the trend and seeing good tickets sales, the jury is still out about which events need to pivot and how. The 2025 Summer festival season will be an illuminating one.