Laneway will visit four cities in 2027 instead of six. Adelaide and Perth are off the map, and the Queensland leg moves from the Gold Coast to the Brisbane Showgrounds after a single year down the highway.
The festival confirmed on 10 August that its 2027 run will take in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. Dates and lineup are still to come.
What the festival said
Organisers pointed to the logistics of running that many shows so close together across that much ground, and said a pause frees up touring capacity for artists to bring headline shows to cities the festival does not stop in. They were careful to say it is not the end in either city, describing it as “not goodbye, just see you soon”.
The Gold Coast bit
Queensland’s Laneway date only landed on the Gold Coast for 2026. One year later it heads back up the highway to the Brisbane Showgrounds. For Gold Coast operators that is a lost weekend of visitation, accommodation and spill-over trade, and it is a reminder that a touring festival stop is not the same thing as local live music infrastructure. Precincts, rooms and a working circuit are what stay put.
The wider pattern
Two capitals losing a national festival stop in the same announcement is the clearest signal yet that the touring map is being drawn tighter. Adelaide and Perth carry the highest freight, crew and travel costs on any national run, so they are the first to come off when the maths gets hard. That is a structural problem rather than a taste problem, and it is one the sector has been raising in funding and touring submissions for years.
For our members based in Perth and Adelaide, this is a major loss of work and opportunities, with the gap likely too late to fill.
For government, the new round of Revive Live needs to take into account the greater costs and pressures facing Adelaide and Perth as well as the whole of SA and WA.
