British band Blur pull out of Big Day Out

THE embattled Big Day Out has been dealt another serious blow with reunited British headliners Blur pulling out of the 2014 festival.

UK band 'Blur' have pulled out of the Big Day out because of "constantly shifting goalposts and challenging conditions of

The embattled Big Day Out has been dealt another serious blow with reunited British headliners Blur pulling out of the 2014 festival.

The band lead by Damon Albarn announced they would not join Pearl Jam and Arcade Fire as the marquee acts for next year's event via social media.

"Devastated to report that Blur won't be performing at BDO in 2014. It's a shock that it has come to this," Blur posted on Facebook.

"Only 8 weeks to go, the band feels that with the constantly shifting goalposts and challenging conditions of the organisers, they can't let it drag on any longer and want to make this announcement, to be clear to Blur fans that they won't be there.

"We've done our very best to work with the organisers and considered every option to make it happen, but they've let us down and let everyone else down too."

Damon Albarn of Blur performs during the "Primavera 0" (Spring 0) festival in Montevideo earlier this month. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Pablo PORCIUNCULA

They posted a similar missive on Twitter.

The band was reluctant to continue their reunion with an Australian tour with frontman Damon Albarn keen to focus on a solo album.

Albarn agreed after being convinced by Big Day Out co-founder Ken West.

West decided to bow out of the event he created in 1992, with the festival now owned by Lollapalooza promoters C3 and Soundwave supremo AJ Maddah.

The event scaled back to one Sydney date after disappointing early sales for the January event.

Many Australian festivals are struggling to sell out as fans weigh up the value for money and line-ups for the summer festival calendar.

Big Day Out organisers are yet to comment on the loss of their headliner.