Dinosaur Jr-Headlined Tent Pole Festival Cancelled

Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree, the Dinosaur Jr-headlined festival, has been cancelled.

The event was due to take place on Saturday, 17 February, at Geelong’s Mt Duneed Estate. As well as the US indie rock legends headlining the festival, Tent Pole was also set to host the likes of additional international acts Mogwai and Calexico, and Melbourne’s own RVG, Cash Savage And The Last Drinks, CIVIC, The Belair Lip Bombs, and more. Dinosaur Jr were also scheduled to play their 1993 album Where You Been in full to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Punters received an email about the festival’s cancellation via email yesterday. While the announcement hasn’t hit social media yet, the event’s website has been updated with an “event cancelled” notice. The announcement reads:

In a very disappointing turn of events, we have made the difficult decision to cancel Tent Pole 2024. This decision has not been made lightly as there is still strong belief in the event and what it can offer, however, the current economic climate coupled with the difficulties associated with establishing a new regional festival has made it impossible for us to proceed.

 All ticket purchasers will receive an automatic refund.

Tent Pole is run in collaboration with a day on the green’s masthead Roundhouse Entertainment, Brian “BT” Taranto’s Love Police and I OH YOU founder Johann Ponniah.

The 2024 Tent Pole was only its second year running following a successful 2023 event that hosted headliners Pavement, who toured Australia alongside the festival for the first time in 13 years.

Pavement were joined by Spiderbait, legendary Geelong locals Magic Dirt, alt-pop-rock faves Floodlights, San Diego rock’n’soulers The Schizophonics, NT rockers Black Rock Band, punk trio CLAMM and more.

Roundhouse Entertainment Director Michael Newton said about this year’s festival, “Our first Tent Pole event was so much fun, from the moment we started talking about it until the after-show beers! It’s great to be back.”

Ponniah added, “I had an absolute blast at the inaugural Tent Pole earlier this year and am so stoked with the line-up for ’24. Pumped to hit the Surf Coast again!”