The Lost Weekend festival, set to host the likes of Dinosaur Jr, The Drones and Brian Jonestown Massacre at the Riverstage in Brisbane on March 6-7, has been cancelled.
According to a statement on the official website, the reason for the cancellation is due to 'insufficient time to achieve critical mass". This despite the festivals
initial announcement in early November 2009, when the event was set to be held at the Ivory Rocks Conference Centre on the outskirts of Brisbane.
The statement on the
website reads:
The Lost Weekend has been cancelled.
After moving from Ivory's Rock to the Brisbane River Stage, The Lost Weekend has had insufficient time to achieve critical mass and we have been left with no choice but to cancel the event.
As local promoters it was our dream to run an event similar to other regional events like Meredith in Victoria and to bring such an event to SE QLD.
This is one of the saddest and most difficult decisions we have ever had to make.
We apologise to the real music fans that have supported The Lost Weekend and purchased tickets.
A FULL REFUND will be available to all of you from the point of purchase next week.
We also apologise to the bands who had committed to our dream.
Over 60 international and local bands were booked to play the festival. Earlier this month, organisers announced that the festival would move from being a three day camping festival at the Ivory Rocks Conference Centre, to a two day festival at Brisbane's Riverstage. That announcement, when read in hindsight, perhaps foretold of what would come:
"We will continue to work with the venue and local authorities towards holding an event of the originally intended nature at Ivory’s Rock Conference Centre – all parties have been keen to make The Lost Weekend work and we still believe we will achieve this in time,” the promoter stated. “But in the end we needed to make sure we could provide the best experience at the inaugural event for both patrons and artists alike."
All other information has been removed from the website.