Breaking: Australia’s Stereosonic is Cancelled for 2016

Update: Stereosonic issued an official statement that the festival will take a hiatus for 2016, but will return in 2017

Geez, if 2015 was the year of festival rain-outs then 2016 is the year of festival cancellations. News is currently breaking that Australia’s largest touring festival, Stereosonic, is “binned permanently” according to the Daily Telegraph. This comes on the heels of TomorrowWorld’s 2016 hiatus along with Insomniac’s 2016 cancellation of EDC Puerto Rico and Beyond Wonderland SF. It should come as little surprise to find out that Stereosonic is a property of Totem OneLove, which is owned by the now bankrupt SFX.

Stereosonic had a very difficult 2015 as the festival was rocked by a pair of unfortunate deaths during its previous run. Australia’s inthemix reported the sources close to the festival have longer rumored that the festival would be unlikely to return for some time. Between the bad press from last year’s deaths and SFX’s bankruptcy it comes as little surprise that this might happen. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Stereosonic’s Melbourne office is now up for lease. Apparently, all of the core team behind Stereosonic has left SFX and there is nobody left to organize the festival.

Stereosonic has yet to make any public comment on the story, but we expect they will be forced to say something soon. This is another troubling sign of the times for dance music, as EDM is experiencing a global contraction in 2016. Of course, this is also another victim of the SFX bankruptcy as the company simply lacks the organization and resources now to rehabilitate the troubled festival property. Stay tuned for more information as we get it.

Source: inthemix