Bluesfest Byron Bay to return next year

A year after declaring that 2025 would mark the end of an era, one of the country’s longest-running music festivals has reversed course.

Vintage Trouble play the 30th anniversary Bluesfest.

Bluesfest Byron Bay, one of the country’s biggest and longest-running music festivals, has announced that it will return next year — just one year after declaring that the 2025 edition would be its last.

Launched in 1990, the festival has become a beloved fixture of Australia’s musical landscape — an annual pilgrimage of blues, roots, rock and soul that draws both international headliners and local acts to the Byron Bay region each Easter.

Last year, festival director Peter Noble announced his decision to bring Bluesfest to an end after its 36th iteration, citing the overwhelming demands of staging such a major event year after year.

After two years of successive “big losses” — for its under-attended 2023 and 2024 events — Noble declared: “As much as it pains me to say this, it’s time to close this chapter. As I said earlier this year at Bluesfest 2024, next year’s festival will be happening and it definitely is, but it will be our last.”

Peter Noble, the owner of Bluesfest. Picture: Kurt Petersen

“We were at a very low point, along with the rest of the industry; we were fighting for our survival,” Noble told The Australian in December.

That announcement triggered an outpouring of emotion from fans, artists and industry professionals, many of whom saw the festival as a cornerstone of Australia’s live music scene.

Now, Noble has changed his tune.

As fans rushed to secure tickets to what they believed would be a final hurrah, sales surged — reaching 109,000, the third-largest attendance in Bluesfest history.

“That support means Bluesfest fans have kept this dream alive,” said Noble following the Easter 2025 event, which he described as “a clarion call for me. People want this event. People want it to continue.”

“We’re the top-selling festival in the country, and we’ve worked hard to get here.”

Festival organisers have confirmed that Bluesfest 2026 will take place “around Easter.”

More to come…