Tasmania’s Dark Mofo cancelled for 2024
The decision comes as organisers grapple with escalating financial difficulties, prompting newly appointed artistic director Chris Twite to declare a one-year ‘period of renewal’.
Tasmania’s winter music and arts festival, Dark Mofo, has been cancelled for 2024.
The decision comes as organisers grapple with escalating financial difficulties, prompting Dark Mofo’s newly appointed artistic director, Chris Twite, to declare a one-year “period of renewal” for the festival, with aspirations for a “full return” in 2025.
This announcement arrives despite the festival’s record-breaking attendance and box office success in 2023.
“While this was a tough decision, it ensures we move forward in a viable manner,” he said in a press release on Friday.
“The fallow year will enable us to secure the future of Dark Mofo and its return at full force in 2025.”
The year of 2024 was poised to be Twite’s inaugural year at the helm of Dark Mofo, following the departure of long-serving artistic director Leigh Carmichael in May.
Twite has been a stalwart of the performing arts landscape for the past decade, having previously commissioned, curated, produced and promoted programs for Sydney Festival, Falls Festival, Brisbane Festival and the Sydney Opera House, among others.
Twite said the Dark Mofo team had been collaborating with the state government in a concerted effort to find solutions that would allow the festival to proceed in 2024. However, they ultimately concluded that additional time and space were imperative to refashion a more sustainable model for the festival’s future.
“It allows us to face, head-on, rising costs and changing conditions to ensure that future for a full return in 2025, and to lay the foundation for the festival for another decade.”
Despite the festival’s hiatus, two Dark Mofo traditions, the Winter Fest and Nude Solstice Swim, will remain on the calendar for the upcoming year.
“Dark Mofo has always been dedicated to enriching and transforming lives through ambitious art and ideas,” Twite said.
“We want to make sure that we have a festival that continues to deliver incredible art and artists, that continues to expand its artistic boundaries and remains a beacon of creativity, innovation, and cultural significance.”
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