Bluesfest collapse leaves merchandise supplier $65k out of pocket
The couple has not slept since hearing Bluesfest is in liquidation. (Supplied: Linda Sutton)
In short:
A Tweed Heads business has been left at least $65,000 out of pocket by the collapse of Bluesfest.
It is among scores of small businesses dealing with the fallout from Bluesfest going into liquidation.
What's next?
A lawyer who has worked with Bluesfest stallholders owed money in previous years says creditors need answers.
Branded with the Bluesfest 2026 logo, more than 6,000 T-shirts are now languishing in boxes in a Gold Coast warehouse.
Family-owned company Uniform Print Lab, based in Tweed Heads, was due to deliver the merchandise this week, ready to be sold at the famous Byron Bay festival over Easter.
On Friday afternoon, company co-owner Linda Sutton heard media reports the festival was cancelled and Bluesfest had gone into liquidation.
Ms Sutton said her company was due to get its final payment of $65,000 from Bluesfest when it delivered the goods.
The merchandise was due to be sent to the festival site this week. (Supplied: Linda Sutton)
Without that payment, Ms Sutton said she was now scrambling to keep their business afloat.
"All weekend we haven't slept, we've been tossing up 10,000 ideas of how we can fix this,"she said.
"I owe my creditors $25,000 so I just want enough money to pay my creditors, really, and not be struggling all of a sudden."
The now-redundant merchandise includes Bluesfest-branded caps, bags, lanyards, tea towels and 5,000 stubby coolers.
The couple say they are owed $65,000. (Supplied: Linda Sutton)
While some have suggested the company still try to sell the merchandise, it is unable to.
Ms Sutton said she had received legal advice the company could not recoup any losses by selling the stock because Bluesfest had paid a deposit and so the goods now belonged to the receivers.
"It's gut-wrenching,"she said.
MP demands answers
Ms Sutton and her partner Chris Gadd are among scores of small business operators dealing with the fallout from the cancellation of Bluesfest just three weeks before the first musicians were set to hit the stage.
The state member for Ballina, Tamara Smith, said her office had been inundated with concerned callers, many of them local businesses, booked in to work at Bluesfest 2026.
Tamara Smith says creditors, ticketholders and the community deserve answers. (Supplied: Tamara Smith)
"I'm so devastated on their behalf, it's just awful," the Greens MP said.
"Everyone has a right to be really, really angry, three weeks out you don't necessarily get refunds for anything, let alone the tickets."
"We have no information and that's reprehensible. If it was me, I would be making sure there was a hotline for people to contact."
When asked if Bluesfest could be thrown a last-minute government lifeline, Ms Smith said that time had passed.
"I think that last year was the opportunity to help Bluesfest, there was a conversation around the long-term future, I don't know what happened to those conversations," she said.
"What I do know is that the model of private corporations for festivals is deeply flawed, people have rightly said, 'Why should we be giving [government] money to corporations?' I agree.
"I think cultural festivals should be not-for-profit enterprises and that way [government] could comfortably support them as experiences of culture and music and the arts, as opposed to a money-making venture."
The NSW government supported Bluesfest in 2025 through the Contemporary Music Festival Viability Fund with a grant of $250,000.
Bluesfest received an undisclosed amount of funding from Destination NSW for this year's event.
In December last year, Bluesfest was also awarded $333,333 for a street festival at Brunswick Heads to run in conjunction with Bluesfest.
The money was part of the 2026-2027 Open Streets Program Foundation Event funding, and the ABC understands Bluesfest had so far received approximately $200,000 of the grant.
Bluesfest management was contacted for comment but declined, referring the ABC to the liquidator, Worrells.
Call for forensic accounting
Lawyer Mark Swivel from Barefoot Law represented a number of Bluesfest stallholders when the company did not repay stall fees after the event was cancelled during COVID.
"Eventually they got a 75 per cent refund, but had to fight tooth and nail to get that," he said.
Mr Swivel said he had been contacted by businesses out of pocket from the late cancellation, but believed the current situation was very different.
Mark Swivel says the process would benefit from oversight by a forensic accountant. (Supplied: Kirra Pendergast)
"The state government should conduct an inquiry into how the grant money was spent, the money should be tracked and a forensic accountant is the right person to conduct that inquiry,"he said.
"Bluesfest lobbied the state government for the money, a lot of people were relying on Bluesfest to come through and for this to be a big event."
"Stallholders are likely to end up as unsecured creditors and they might have no rights at all."