REDFEST organisers have announced the large-scale festival has been called off this year due to coronavirus.
The festival's new committee met last week to discuss the festival and potential challenges associated with running the event, which was scheduled to run during the first weekend in September.
While the festival will not be going ahead in its traditional three day format, organisers would be looking into alternative approaches, like small pop-up functions, to continue the essence of the festival.
In a statement, organisers said it was a challenging year for all large-scale public events and gatherings.
"The committee considers the safety of our community, their families, the musicians, event contributors, volunteers and vendors is paramount. "
Organisers had approached federal, state and local government members for advice on the viability of the festival.
"Whilst there have been a raft of positive directives regarding the lifting of restrictions now cascading from federal and state governments, the committee also considered crucial components of executing the festival, to ever-increasing high standards and the difficulty in doing so effectively and safely in the current climate," the statement read.
"The trajectory of both growth in attendees and the ever increasing quality of the festival over the last handful of years has been a real credit to the tireless efforts of outgoing president Luke Kinman and his team of volunteers and the executive committee as a whole."
RedFest is one of the biggest events in the Redlands calendar, with crowds of close to 20,000 attending in previous years.
The 60th festival was held in 2018.
"(It is a) critical few days that forms part of the fabric of our community, enabling a space for the community to collaborate, celebrate and showcase the heart of the Redlands and all it has to offer, and so getting back to normal life, post coronavirus containment phase, RedFest 2020 was seen as a priority," the statement read.
It comes after the Ekka was called off for just the third time in the event's history, after Spanish Flu in 1919 and WWII in 1942.
