Adelaide festival canned due to changing COVID restrictions

A South Australian festival featuring Bad//Dreems, Luke Million, Peter Combe and showcasing over 60 brewers, distillers, winemakers and local food vendors has been canned due to changing COVID restrictions. 

“We’re absolutely gutted to announce that the upcoming HomeBrewed Festival at the Adelaide Showground has been cancelled due to the ongoing government restrictions on social activity in South Australia,” organisers announced via Facebook this afternoon.

“The BBF team have been working hard on this event for several months and have been excited to present a Covid-safe festival by following the guidelines that were set to come into place on December 28th in line with the Government of South Australia’s 90% vaccinated re-opening plan.”

With the government now restricting “vertical consumption” and dancing – even at fully-vaccinated events – until at least January 27th, organisers say their plans for the 21st to 23rd of January have been “quashed”.

“We simply can’t run HomeBrewed in a seated format, and a postponement into a time where we would be competing with the beasts that are Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe and WOMADelaide is simply not viable,” they said.

“We’re so proud of the team and the event line-up for what would have been a great celebration of South Australian food, beverages and artists after a shocker of a year in 2021, and we’re even more disappointed that punters will miss out on yet another event in SA.”

Ticket holders will be refunded in full, with no action needed.

The post can be read in full here.

Event organisers, who also run the annual Beer & BBQ Festival – also postponed by a whole year due to COVID – say the government assistance available doesn’t cut it.

“Whilst we welcome the government assistance that is available to our business to cover sunk costs that the festival has incurred to date (up to $100,000), by imposing the harshest restrictions on trade since June 2020 and by far the most restrictive in the country currently, the forced cancellation of just HomeBrewed Festival is much further reaching,” Event Director Gareth Lewis said.

“Our industry desperately wants to get back to work in a safe format but the constantly changing goalposts and inconsistency of any real financial support coupled with total lack of empathy or respect has led to the destruction of businesses and livelihoods, the degradation of mental health to the point of costing lives and will now take years if not decades to recover.”

Organisers of the event released a summary of the cancellation’s financial impact:

• 100+ local businesses engaged now missing revenue (brewers, restaurants, artists, stage builders, event hire companies, market stalls and so on) representing approx $1,600,000 in lost revenue streams.
• 150+ directly employed staff representing almost 3,000 casual hours or approx $150,000 in direct casual wages.
• 750+ casual staff employed by brewers, food vendors, cleaners, security, stagehands, audio technicians etc representing over 13,500 casual hours or $675,000 in indirect casual wages.
• 92 artists, musicians, DJs and other on-stage talent or approx $60,000 in artist fees.
• With the addition of inter and intra-state tourism the measure of economic impact lost is in excess of $5,000,000.

They implored the government to engage with community stakeholders.

“We call on the government to engage with the events and hospitality industries, end the state of emergency, develop a proper events insurance scheme as other states have, give us a clear roadmap and stick to it so we can plan for the future,” Lewis said.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.