Falls Festival Has Been Cancelled For 2023

Event organisers have cancelled the event to “rest, recover and recalibrate”.

It’ll be back to the drawing board for a lot of folks’ New Years plans, because the iconic Falls Festival NYE event has been cancelled for 2023.

The festival had it’s post-COVID comeback last year, touring Australia over the 2022/23 Summer, featuring the likes of Lil Nas X, Arctic Monkeys and The Wiggles, but it won’t be on this year.

Secret Sounds, the team behind Falls Festival, announced the move via social on Wednesday morning, with a tongue-in-cheek ‘Out of Office’ message.

“After an impressive 28 years ringing in the New Year with some of the world’s biggest acts, the Falls team are today switching on their OOOs and taking this New Years’ season off to rest, recover and recalibrate,” the post said.

Secret Sounds co-CEO and Falls organizer Jessica Ducrou said it was time for the team behind the iconic three-day festie to reconsider what it’s gonna look like in the future.

"While Falls' reboot in 2022/23 was full of amazing moments and we were thrilled to reconnect with our Falls Fam, our team needs a break, so this year we'll take time off to enjoy the holiday period and allow some space to re-imagine how Falls will look in the future."

Falls, like all other music festivals, has had a rough go of it in the past few years, withCOVID, rising cost-of-living, and weather events all putting a dampener on multi-day music festivals.

"The past few years has seen unprecedented change in the live music space, both front of house and behind the scenes," Jessica said.

Last year, the festival announced a shock move on its Victorian leg, moving the festival from its traditional home in Lorne to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne City.

It’s unclear what the future of the festival looks like, but here’s hoping they return to sort out our 2024 NYE plans.