Dark Mofo the latest casualty in Australia’s wave of festival cancellations

Tasmania’s popular winter festival, Dark Mofo, will not go ahead next year as organisers attempt to take stock of changing conditions and rising costs. The cancellation comes amid a string of other festival cancellations, including Falls Festival and This That.

“While this was a tough decision, it ensures we move forward in a viable manner,” said the event’s artistic director, Chris Twite, 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.”

Next year’s Dark Mofo has been cancelled.

The 2024 event would have been Twite’s first time at the helm after taking over for Leigh Carmichael in May.

Festival organisers had been working with the state government to find ways to proceed with the festival next year, however they ultimately decided it required more time and space to reset and create a more sustainable model for the future.

“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.”

The Winter Feast and Nude Solstice Swim – two of the festival’s biggest tourist drawcards – will still take place next year. These will coincide with the opening of a new major exhibition at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, Mona. The dates for these events will be announced shortly.

Dark Mofo is the latest casualty in a wave of cancelled Australian festivals. The Falls festival – which usually takes place over three days to ring in the New Year – was cancelled earlier this year following a breakdown in discussions over the festival’s new home. Its producer, Jessica Ducrou, issued a statement in May that said organisers were taking a break to “re-imagine how Falls will look in the future” and to “rest, recover and recalibrate”.

Earlier this month, the This That music festival, which takes place in Queensland and Newcastle, was cancelled for the second year in a row.

“This difficult decision was reached due to the challenging economic conditions we have been working within this past year, and the many factors that have been impacted by this,” the festival’s team wrote on Instagram at the time.

“It has left us feeling that the This That experience you have come to know and love, and that we pride ourselves on offering, would only be dampened if we were to forge ahead.”

Despite the festival’s cancellation, Dark Mofo’s Nude Solstice Swim will still go ahead next year.Credit: Mona/Vanessa Ritchie

Other festivals have suffered a similar fate this year, as supplier costs surge and ticket sales dwindle. New South Wales’ not-for-profit festival, Play on the Plains, was meant to take place in March, but was cancelled after it struggled to sell enough tickets.

Queensland’s Jungle Love 2023 festival was also axed, with its organisers noting it would not return until 2025.

Other victims include Queenscliff’s By The Pier, the 2 Degrees Festival, New Shoots Music Festival and Modifyre – all of which cited issues around financial sustainability and rising costs.

Dark Mofo, a midwinter arts and music festival, has been taking place in Hobart since 2013. This year’s event marked its 10-year anniversary and the final rendition led by Carmichael.

It has courted some controversy in the past, most notably in 2021 when the festival’s team was criticised for their plans to show Spanish artist Santiago Sierra’s artwork, Union Flag – a Union Jack flag soaked in the donated blood of First Nations peoples from colonised territories.

Though it reportedly noted strong attendance this year, the festival’s organisers said a temporary pause would offer “time and space to set the stage for another decade of darkness”.

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