Bluesfest collapse leaves punters, suppliers reeling

Ticketholders are not the only ones dudded by the sudden collapse of music festival Bluesfest, with one small business left $90,000 out of pocket.

Uniform Print Lab was supplying merchandise for the Byron Bay festival and spent six weeks printing about 15,000 items including T-shirts, stubby holders, hats and lanyards.

The family business in the NSW town of Tweed Heads was organising to deliver it all on Friday when they heard the festival had entered liquidation.

"It's gut-wrenching. We're a small family business. We've been around for years and we've never had this happen before," business owner Linda Sutton said.

"We haven't slept for three days, going through every single scenario that we can do to rescue this and raise money."

Bluesfest has run for more than 36 years and hosted some of the world's biggest artists including Bob Dylan and James Brown.

It's one of a string of Australian music festivals to hit the wall in recent years, along with Splendour in the Grass and Groovin the Moo.

Promoter Peter Noble had advertised 2025 as the final year of Bluesfest, but when it attracted more than 100,000 patrons across four days, he decided to return in April 2026.

The festival's collapse has left an estimated $23 million in ticket sales in limbo, with appointed liquidators warning ticketholders are unlikely to be refunded.

Small businesses supplying transport, catering and accommodation in the Northern Rivers region have also been caught by the demise of Bluesfest.

Then there are the musicians themselves - live looping artist Fin Zerner and his family paid about $2400 for tickets and accommodation so the 16-year-old could perform at Bluesfest.

The high school student had won a coveted spot in the Bluesfest busking competition and was crushed to discover the festival had been axed.

"It was definitely one of the biggest opportunities he would have had, one of the biggest stages he would have played on," his mother Melanie Zerner said.

Ms Sutton had hoped to sell off Bluesfest T-shirts to pay the company's suppliers but because festival organisers paid a deposit, the merchandise is legally under the liquidators' control.

She will have to find somewhere to store it while the process plays out.

"I think we're probably one of the biggest people that has outlaid so much right now. It's really hard," she said.