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Well this is becoming a familiar and unfortunate trend. Promoters have just announced that Australia’s first cruise ship festival Sea N Beats has officially been cancelled. The event was supposed to take place in early March next year, where punters would have partied with the musical line-up on a cruise ship for four days and three nights off the coast of Queensland.

The statement, posted to Facebook, read:

“Australia’s first cruise ship Festival, Sea ‘N Beats, announces with regret the cancellation of their March 5-8, 2016 event. Whilst every possibility in the hope of proceeding with Australia’s first cruise ship festival has been looked at, ultimately all parties involved concluded that conducting a music festival at sea comes with challenges that could not be overcome. We believe that the most appropriate decision was to not continue with the event. All ticket buyers have been individually contacted via email and a full refund offered.”

The news of this cancellation will surely add to the skepticism behind the organisation of new, local festivals, with R&B event Soulfest also meeting the same fate last month. Some commentators seemed unsurprised by the news, seeing it as an overly-ambitious premise for an event which was charging premium prices (in excess of $1000) to attend, without the pull of major international acts. Sea N Beats boasted quite a big line-up but it was mainly local electronic acts, many of which would also be playing a slew of other dates during Australia’s packed festival season.

And while most ticket-buyers will be fully refunded, being that this massive cruise was only departing from Brisbane, meant that some attendees would have had to purchase additional flights and accommodation. And unless you bought these through their specified travel sponsor, the festival is not responsible for refunding the value of the additional purchases. Here’s hoping people took up some good travel insurance.

More information on the refund policy can be found here.

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