Big Red Bash: Mammoth Aussie festival won’t be returning in 2025

Organisers of an iconic Aussie music festival have made a huge announcement after more than a decade of successful events.

One of the world’s most remote music festivals, held in Birdsville in outback Queensland, will be put on pause for 2025.

A lot of effort goes into getting the desert site festival-ready and organisers of the Big Red Bash made the early call to put the iconic festival on hold next year to give the team a break.

But they say it will be back in 2026 from July 7.

Big Red Bash festival has been put on hold for one year, so it won’t be returning in 2025. Picture: Matt Williams

The mammoth event, staged at the Big Red Dune 35km west of Birdsville in the Simpson Desert is the most remote music festival in the world and has been operating continuously since 2013, other than in 2020 during Covid.

Transforming the dessert site is a mammoth effort and while it wasn’t an easy decision, event organiser Gary Donovan said the team is overdue a break to reset and recharge. Picture: Matt Williams

Its most recent edition attracted about 7500 to a line-up that featured Tina Arena, Jon Stevens and Colin Hay across three days in July, despite the challenges of heavy rainfall.

Outback Music Festival Group managing director and festival founder/organiser, Greg Donovan, described it as a “bucket list experience” and one that is “consistently sold out”.

He said the spectacular desert location means they have no infrastructure on site – not even the basics of running water or electricity.

This year’s event attracted around 7500 festival goers. Picture: Matt Williams

“So every year we effectively build and remove a mini city from scratch and spend six days looking after thousands of people,” he explained.

“It’s a huge task, and one of the most logistically demanding events in the world to stage. “Planning for the event is year-round, and most of our crew set aside a month to be on the ground from start to finish.”

Over 400 adventure-loving drag kings and queens gathered on the Big Red Sand Dune for the annual Bashville Drags Race this year. Picture: Matt Williams

the event raised an outstanding $14,385 for the important work of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS). Picture: Matt Williams

Speaking on the one-year breather, he said: “After 11 successful years of staging the event and overcoming so many challenges and obstacles, our awesome team is overdue a break to reset and recharge”.

“So, we are having a ‘BRB breather’ in 2025. To us it feels a bit like having a gap year after 12 years of school.

The festival will be back in 2026. Picture: Matt Williams

“This break is not dissimilar to what some major overseas festivals do, with the most prominent example being Glastonbury in the UK which has a ‘Fallow Year’ once every five or six years when they feel the time is right.”

He said it wasn’t a decision they took lightly and know it will cause disappointment for festival goers and local businesses who benefit from the influx of travellers.

“For this reason, we wanted to give people as much notice as possible about the pause,” Mr Donovan said.

“Hopefully many will plan ahead to join us in 2026, and if that’s the case they can lock in 7th to 9th July that year, when we will be back refreshed, recharged and ready and eager to Rock the Simpson once again.”

It’s business as usual for the Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash which will be staged for the fifth time at Belmont Station on the iconic Mundi Mundi Plains from August 21 to 23, 2025.