Auckland music festival scrapped following financial strain

Wednesday, 13 May 2026

Auckland music festival The Others Way has been cancelled for the foreseeable future, organisers say.

It is yet another Aotearoa music festival that has had to bow out, following others like Juicy Fest, Timeless Summer Tour and Listen In. Other concerts have been postponed or are on hiatus, like Bay Dreams and Womad, all due to the rising costs throughout the industry.

Reuben Bonner, festival director of The Others Way, said the decision to cancel the Karangahape Road festival came “after years of mounting financial pressure, rising industry costs and an increasingly unstable live music & funding landscape, making the festival no longer sustainable to deliver.”

The Others Way since 2015 had become a juggernaut of celebrating independent music. Banished Music said the festival had earned a reputation as a “vital platform for emerging artists and music discovery.”

Bonner said trying to make a living as a mid-level independent music promoter in Aotearoa in 2026 was hard.

“Delivering an independent boutique festival on the smell of an oily rag is extremely hard, and then throwing in the economic conditions and insane world that is 2026, you have a recipe for wild instability and stress, and very real potential outcomes like ‘we’ll be bankrupt if this goes wrong’,” the statement said.

“In short, the magnificent joy received from delivering The Others Way is outweighed by the sheer financial strain and emotional toll it takes on us to deliver.”

Bonner said the financial strain came from rising costs across the entertainment industry, ongoing uncertainty in the sponsorship and funding landscape, “and people just doing it too tough out there to commit to buying gig tickets have created significant pressure.”

“We’ve explored every avenue available to us seeking new & established funding partners, pursuing sponsorship opportunities, and rethinking how the festival could operate sustainably. Despite these efforts, we haven’t been able to secure the secret formula to deliver the festival in a way that meets both our standards and our financial obligations,” he said.