{"id":860594,"date":"2026-08-19T08:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860594\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T08:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:20:12","slug":"saturated-outback-music-festival-mundi-mundi-bash-forced-to-turn-away-some-ticket-holders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860594\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Saturated’ outback music festival Mundi Mundi Bash forced to turn away some ticket holders"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Australia’s largest outback music festivals has been forced to turn away some of its 15,000 ticket holders after heavy rain saturated the site.<\/p>\n

After deliberating overnight and most of today, organisers of the Mundi Mundi Bash said only a portion of festival-goers could enter the partially flooded festival site following an assessment of conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only those with two- or three-day early entry passes will be granted access, while those with a one-day early pass or a standard vehicle entry ticket will be offered a refund.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

The festival’s founder, Greg Donovan, said it was “the most gut-wrenching decision” he ever had to make after 30 per cent of the site was deemed unsuitable for camping.<\/p>\n

“The site held up well following a 42mm rain event on 8 and 9 August, and was ready to welcome this year’s Bashers,” Mr Donovan said online.<\/p>\n

“However, further rain during the roll-in period has had a significant impact because the ground was already saturated.<\/p>\n

“I am profoundly saddened and upset that this has happened \u2026 I understand and empathise with the disappointment, frustration and heartbreak you are feeling.”Long lines to enter the festival<\/p>\n

The wet weather had hampered the roll-in of vehicles over the past few days, with some lining up overnight to enter the grounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilangee Road, used to access the festival, has only been accessible by four-wheel drive since the weekend.<\/p>\n

However, crews have still been staggering and restricting access to four-wheel drives too.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

The Mundi Mundi Bash site is partially flooded following widespread rain. (Supplied: Peter Nash)<\/p>\n

Monique McGrath is attending her first Mundi Mundi Bash with a group of 14 friends, who have travelled from Dubbo, Illawarra and Port Macquarie.<\/p>\n

She said they began lining up to enter the festival site at about 1pm yesterday, but they were not granted access until this morning.<\/p>\n

“It was very slow \u2026 we camped in the line-up,” Ms McGrath said.<\/p>\n

“I took photos [of the line-up of caravans], and it just went for miles and miles and miles.”<\/p>\n

She said the conditions had been less than favourable.<\/p>\n

“Very muddy, the rain last night was absolutely horrendous,” Ms McGrath said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve actually got one of our crew members bogged at the moment, so we’re just waiting on a recovery vehicle to come out and pull these guys out.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Wilangee Road, used to access the festival site is now closed to all vehicles except four-wheel-drives. (ABC Broken Hill: Oliver Brown)<\/p>\n

Mary and Graham travelled from Adelaide with a group of six caravans to attend Mundi, and reported lining up for more than four hours.<\/p>\n

“All the roadways, which [when] we were here two years ago were lovely and dry, are 1787127609 just muddy messes,” Mary said.<\/p>\n

“We managed to all get in and none of us got bogged, but people around us are bogged.<\/p>\n

“[Some people] had to camp on the roadways, within the camp, but there’s also people [who] camped on the external roadway because they shut the gates and had nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

“This morning, they’re all moving quite slowly.”<\/p>\n

Speaking before organisers decided to limit access to the festival, ticket holder\u00a0Lincoln Dalla Santa from Mildura, who has attended every Mundi Bash, said the crazy weather is simply part of the outback experience.<\/p>\n

\"Lincoln<\/p>\n

Lincoln Dalla Santa (right) says the crazy weather is all part of the outback experience. (ABC Broken Hill: Bill Ormonde)<\/p>\n

“[The weather] doesn’t really faze me, whether it’s muddy, whether it’s hot, it doesn’t matter, it’s just part of what it is,” Mr Dalla Santa said.<\/p>\n

“You wouldn’t have an outback festival if it wasn’t [braving] the elements.<\/p>\n

“What nature dishes out, we just gotta live with that.”<\/p>\n

Organisers have said they will provide an update at 2pm today.<\/p>\n

More rain on the way<\/p>\n

A total of 11.6 millimetres of rain was recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology at the Broken Hill Airport over Monday and Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Forecasts from the bureau show more rain and a possible storm is on the cards for the region tonight and tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Senior meteorologist Angus Hines said the rain was quite uncommon for winter in the region.<\/p>\n

“[It is] pretty dry normally at this time of year as we push through the cooler months,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The average in Broken Hill for August rainfall is about 18 millimetres, but we’ve had already two pretty solid dumps of rain just in the past couple of weeks, which have well and truly exceeded that monthly average.”<\/p>\n

Mr Hines said the wet weather system was not done yet, with more showers and possible storms expected overnight and tomorrow.<\/p>\n

“If the storms do get going, then we could see some locally moderate, or even heavy rainfall with those storms directly overhead,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Police are only allowing limited access to the road out of Broken Hill towards the festival site. (ABC Broken Hill: Bill Ormonde)<\/p>\n

Thunderstorms would bring the lion’s share of the rain, but even if they do not occur, wet weather is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

“We could really see anything from a couple of millimetres tonight, perhaps 2, 3 or 5mm, or if we get some heavier showers and storms moving through, we might well see something like 10 or 15mm,” Mr Hines said<\/p>\n

More news from Broken Hill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Australia’s largest outback music festivals has been forced to turn away some of its 15,000 ticket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[430435,64,63,54886,116015,134,7766,163519,67676,67675,430434,67678,15157,1192],"class_list":["post-860594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-2026-mundi-bash","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-broken-hill","tag-caravans","tag-entertainment","tag-festival","tag-mud","tag-mundi-mundi","tag-mundi-mundi-bash","tag-mundi-mundi-bash-2026","tag-music-festival","tag-rain","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}