Listen Out Presses ‘Pause’ on 2025 Festival
The Listen Out team confirmed they’ll be pressing “pause,” and pivoting to curated parties around the country.
Listen Out is sitting out 2025.
Like so many Australian music festivals, Listen Out has felt the weight of downward pressures from every angle, and decided to skip this year’s event.
In a statement posted to its official Instagram, the Listen Out team confirm a change of plans by pressing "pause" on the 2025 show, and pivoting to curated parties around the country.
"The last few years have been tough. So, we're hitting pause on Listen Out as you know it,” reads a statement. “But we're not going anywhere. Introducing Listen Out Presents - tomorrow's got you covered”.
The post insists, “we’re still here for the good time…just in a new way. We’re not saying anything else…for now.”
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Reporting from inside the Australian music business since '94.
The Australian Festival Association commends the team for “taking a thoughtful and creative approach. It reflects both the pressures and possibilities of the current festival landscape.”
Launched in 2013, the hip-hop and dance music fest has “long been a leading voice in Australia’s contemporary music festival landscape,” notes the AFA, “known for championing global and emerging talent with curated line-ups that reflected the culture and energy of the moment.”
It’s tough out there in festival-land. “With complex regulations, rising costs, tight timelines and increasing operational risks,” the AFA continues, “the environment festivals operate in has fundamentally shifted. We are seeing promoters of all sizes adapt in real time.”
New formats like Listen Out Presents are said to be part of an industry-wide evolution, one that “needs to be backed by policy, funding and regulatory reform to ensure a sustainable future for music festivals.”
The most recent Listen Out festival run traveled in September and October 2024, visiting Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane and pulling-up stumps in Sydney.
Those dates featured a lineup led by 1 Savage, Skepta, Lil Tjay and others, but endured late changes with Tyla and Flo Milli separately pulling out.
Despite admitting the current "challenging times for festivals," the event reported "a very successful" 2023, with the most tickets sold since its inception.
The development comes as the local festival scene enters a spin cycle. Earlier this year, Souled Out cancelled its entire 2025 run just days out from the showtime, while major events such as Splendour in the Grass, Groovin the Moo, and Esoteric Festival are missing from the calendar.
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Reporting from inside the Australian music business since '94.
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