{"id":728464,"date":"2026-06-10T22:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/728464\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T22:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:50:11","slug":"victorias-2026-rifflandia-music-festival-cancelled-with-no-plan-to-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/728464\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria’s 2026 Rifflandia music festival cancelled, with no plan to return"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Victoria’s Rifflandia music festival has been cancelled, organizers say, with no plans for it to ever return. <\/p>\n

The multimillion-dollar music and arts event that usually takes place in Victoria over two or three days in September has been running since 2008.<\/p>\n

In a long note on its website<\/a>, the festival said it was hoping to bring forward one last Rifflandia this year but “it was not meant to be.”<\/p>\n

Rifflandia chief operating officer Vanessa Leong told CBC News the music festival had never been profitable in the 15 years that it ran, and rising production costs simply made the festival no longer tenable. <\/p>\n

“Festivals are a difficult business and the landscape has shifted tremendously over the last few years, especially since COVID,” Leong said. <\/p>\n

“Rising costs for insurance and infrastructure and talent continue to come at every festival.”<\/p>\n

Leong said part of this year’s challenge was securing a venue. <\/p>\n

\"AThe Rifflandia festival in Victoria attracted more than 7,000 people per day, but organizers say ticket sales were not enough to pay for the multimillion-dollar event. (Lillie Louise\/Rifflandia)<\/p>\n

In the past, the festival has taken place at the Matullia Lands in Rock Bay and the Royal Athletic Park, but Leong said neither venue was available this year. <\/p>\n

Another challenge for the festival over the years, she said, has been the relatively small population of Greater Victoria \u2014 around 450,000 people \u2014 to support a festival of that size. <\/p>\n

Ticket sales from the roughly 7,500 people who attended the festival each day were never enough to pay for the production costs, she said. <\/p>\n

Growing list of cancelled festivals<\/p>\n

The news is yet another blow to the capital city’s arts and festival scene, with several organizations cancelling a portion or all of their events due to rising costs. <\/p>\n

Earlier this spring, the Esquimalt Buccaneer Days cancelled its parade<\/a>. Other cancelled events include the Oak Bay Tea Party parade and the Lights of Wonder holiday attraction.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | Why some of Greater Victoria’s most popular parades were cancelled this year:<\/p>\n

This is Vancouver Island13:24What\u2019s raining on Greater Victoria\u2019s parades? <\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Buccaneer Days in Esquimalt will go ahead without its signature parade, days after Oak Bay Tea Party announced they\u2019d also forgo theirs. So why are local parades struggling? We\u2019ll hear from event organizers on how new safety regulations, a lack of consistent funding, and a dip in volunteers could be factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think that the industry as a whole is seeing a tipping point,” Leong said. <\/p>\n

“I think we take for granted the value of culture and live music.”<\/p>\n

Nation thanks festival for ‘authentic partnership’<\/p>\n

The Songhees Nation, whose traditional territory includes the Mattulia Lands, offered a tribute to the festival on its Facebook page. <\/p>\n

“From the earliest conversations through to the festival itself, Rifflandia demonstrated a genuine commitment to working together in a good way \u2014 taking the time to listen, learn, and create space for collaboration grounded in respect in trust,” the nation said. <\/p>\n

“Their willingness to engage with our Nation, seek guidance, and foster an authentic partnership sets a positive example of what relationship-building with First Nations can look like in practice.”<\/p>\n

\"MusiciansThe Rifflandia festival in Victoria presented many major music acts over the 15 events it produced over 18 years. (Rifflandia\/Facebook)<\/p>\n

Leong said the festival will continue to produce other events in North America and beyond. <\/p>\n

Rifflandia put on a recent art street festival in Paris, and organizes sports, philanthropic and film events. <\/p>\n

“The world is our oyster and we are excited and we’re inspired to work where we are needed,” Leong said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-728464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}