Deni Ute Muster 2021 Cancelled!

Another blow comes to the music and arts industry with the cancellation of New South Wales' Deni Ute Muster for the second consecutive year due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns and uncertainty around border closures.

In a post on their website, the Deni Ute team states:

It is with great regret that we announce the cancellation of the 2021 Deni Ute Muster due to the evolving COVID-19 outbreak and related restrictions and border closures. We have left making this decision for as long as possible, but the risks are continuing to escalate making it impossible to keep everyone safe.

There is nothing we would like to do more than to party on the plains with you all. For this to happen in the future, we encourage everyone to get vaccinated so that lockdowns and travel restrictions become a thing of the past.

All current ticket holders for 2021 can choose to transfer tickets to our next Deni Ute Muster to be held Friday 30 September to Saturday 1 October 2022, no need to do anything as this will happen automatically. If you are unable to attend the event in 2022, you may request a refund from Oztix by visiting this link: https://forms.oztix.com.au/RefundRequest/.Refund requests are available from 9.00am today (12 August) until 5.00pm on 31 October 2021.

By retaining your tickets for the 2022 event, you are showing support for our iconic event, our community and region, Aussie artists and music industry, entertainers, crew, vendors, volunteers and contractors.

Our hard-working team are as devastated as you must be, all of their hard work once again undone and taken from them. We are a team proud to be Australian, resilient and innovative and we will continue to organise a one-of-a-kind festival which captures the heart of all Australians.

We will be back to you soon with our 2022 artist line up, entertainment schedule and the date tickets will be back on sale.

Thank You for your support.

Established in 1999, the Deni Ute Muster rounds up almost 20,000 music fans in a typical year and generates some $100,000 in donations for local communities. This year’s show was scheduled for October 1-2, with the likes of Troy Cassar-Daley, Busby Marou, The McClymonts, Shannon Noll, McAlister Kemp, Shane Nicholson and Darlinghurst on the bill.

The news comes after last month’s cancellations of the Gympie Music Muster, BIGSOUND Festival, Leaps and Bounds and countless artist tours. With the music industry on its knees and without the support of JobKeeper, the future of the live music industry hangs in the balance, not only with income from events disappearing, but also the pipeline of audience-building for new artists.

With 2021 being the second year without a CMC Rocks and the first year without the Tamworth Country Music Festival, Deni Ute was the great hope for country fans and artists to emerge from COVID-19. With festivals playing a huge role in the nurturing of new talent, the pipeline has been broken and needs repair for our artist’s sake.

The country industry now turns its attention to Savannah In The Round, scheduled for the October long weekend in Mareeba. With all attention now on each day’s infection numbers and the state of border closures, the whole country music scene has its fingers crossed we can still meet again for the first time in 2021, just a little further north than anticipated.

Countrytown wishes the promoters, artists, stall holders and everyone that is affected by this decision all the best as we deal with a very dark time for the live music industry.

For more news from CountryTown, check out here.

Image: via Twitter