27 March 2014 - 0 Comments

After 24 years, the final curtain has dropped on New Zealand’s longest-running music festival. Parachute Music, the charitable organisation behind the multi-day music festival, announced today that the event would be discontinued.

“While we celebrate a great run in this country, it’s important to us that we end well” says Parachute CEO and festival founder Mark de Jong, “This event is no longer viable financially and our Board doesn’t believe it is prudent to continue the event. Continuing the festival will put all the other activities of Parachute Music at risk.”

“It’s no secret that running an event of this scale in Australasia has become increasingly harder to do in a saturated events market” continues de Jong, “Over the last few years, we’ve reduced ticket prices, slashed operational budgets, increased artist spend and done many other things to try to make this festival work; we’ve come to the point where we believe this festival’s season is at an end. The last thing we want to do is to ruin this festival’s legacy by forcing it past a natural conclusion.”

“While we realise that this will be a disappointing blow to our loyal supporters, punters and volunteers, we’re excited about the opportunity to focus our energies on the other core activities of Parachute Music, including the development of emerging musicians, artist mentoring, management and training, as well as our community recording studios. We are also exploring some ideas for new events, watch this space.”

“We have nothing but fond memories of so many festivals, and we are deeply grateful for the thousands of supporters, volunteers, artists and punters who have been on this journey with us. We look forward to continuing this journey together as we move into a new season.”

All pre-purchased tickets to the 2015 event will be refunded in full from http://www.iticket.co.nz/.

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