A much-delayed life raft for the music industry. 

The NSW government has today announced a financial support scheme for large-scale events cancelled or disrupted by COVID-19. The Event Saver Fund, which was partially rolled-out in October 2021, can be accessed by festival organisers across the state, with the intent of paying “suppliers, staff and other recovery costs” in the event of a pandemic-related shutdown. 

Set to provide “the financial security and certainty to plan and deliver future events,” the support package comes in the wake of multiple music festival disruptions amid the Omicron wave, which last week saw the NSW edition of Grapevine Gathering cancelled a mere days before its scheduled outing. Earlier this year, organisers of the Tamworth Country Music Festival and King Street Carnival were similarly forced to postpone their events due to public health orders. 

The announcement will no-doubt be welcomed by the state’s music industry bodies, who last week renewed their calls for additional support in a joint statement lead by the Australian Festival Association and Live Performance Australia. “The live music and entertainment industry’s calls over the past 18 months… have fallen on deaf ears,” the statement read. “Since the Omicron wave has hit around the country, the live music and events sector has once again been smashed with restrictive health orders.”