LUNAR Electric music festival, which was scheduled to go ahead in Newcastle this weekend, has been cancelled due to a rapid growth in the Hunter's COVID case numbers.
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"It's been a couple of years in the making this one. We've been disrupted a few times by bushfires and heat - then COVID," festival founder and managing director, Simon Leigh said before the event's cancellation on Thursday.
The sold out festival, which was capped by organisers at 12,000, would have seen artists such as Kerser, Bliss n Eso, Tigerlilly, Timmy Trumpet and Hooligan Hefs perform between two stages - one in Foreshore Park and one in Camp Shortland.
Mr Leigh put out a joint statement with codirector Shaun Dunn following the cancellation, saying they "will not be rescheduling the Newcastle festival".
"We are devastated at the outcome. Newcastle's Lunar Electric music festival was supposed to be an event to bring that much-needed joy and release from the trials endured across the state over the past two years," the statement read.
"We are currently working through the refund process and all ticket holders will be notified as soon as possible."
State member for Newcastle, Tim Crakanthorp sent a letter to health minister Brad Hazzard Thursday morning requesting NSW Health "undertake a full risk assessment" of the event.
"Significant concern has been raised about this festival given the COVID-19 outbreak in Newcastle and the speed at which it has moved," the letter read.
Mr Crakanthorp told the Newcastle Herald he doesn't "see how in good conscience this festival could go ahead".
"This outbreak has already had a devastating ripple effect and households and local businesses cannot afford to have more people go into isolation, or compromise others' health and safety," he said.
"Common sense has prevailed. I'm relieved that NSW Health has agreed with our community that the risk is too great."
The event was cancelled late Thursday afternoon via public health order.
"NSW Health considered that the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in the Newcastle area, where the majority of a record number of cases are the Omicron variant of concern, presents too great a risk for the festival to take place this weekend," a NSW Health spokesperson said.
According to organisers, this would have been the fifth and largest Lunar Electrical music festival since its 2018 launch in Port Macquarie. The Gold Coast has hosted two iterations of the festival in March and November this year.
"It's been amazing to have artists performing again," Mr Leigh said at Camp Shortland on Thursday as event staff were setting up for the yet-to-be-cancelled festival.
"All the people you see around building our event are the people who didn't have jobs for two years. So they are also excited to be back and earning a living."
The cancellation comes on the back of a 20-year-old man being fined $10,000 for allegedly breaching isolation orders.
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