Caloundra Music Festival

Caloundra Music Festival was a not-for-profit, family-friendly festival run by Sunshine Coast Council at the Kings Beach Amphitheatre in Caloundra every year from 2007 to 2023. Staged over the Queen's Birthday long weekend season in spring, it mixed international and Australian names with local Sunshine Coast talent across multiple stages by the beach, and council valued it at more than $3 million a year in economic and tourism benefit. The festival is now finished: 2023 was the final edition, with council pulling funding for good in 2024.

The festival started in 2007 as a one-day, single-stage event at Kings Beach and grew over the following 15-odd years into a multi-stage long weekend covering everything from roots and rock to soul and hip hop.

Along the way it built a reputation for sustainability initiatives, including the BYO H2O refillable water programme introduced in 2013.

The final edition ran 29 September – 1 October 2023, with a bill including The Temper Trap, Sampa the Great, Hiatus Kaiyote, Arrested Development, Vera Blue, Jack River, Middle Kids, Illy and L.A.B.

Council paused the festival in 2024, citing rising operating costs and slower ticket sales under cost-of-living pressure. Then, with the adoption of the 2024–25 budget in June 2024, Sunshine Coast Council confirmed it would no longer fund the event at all — making the pause permanent.

Mayor Rosanna Natoli said rising costs, falling ticket sales and uncertainty across the festival industry made it too great a risk. Punters at the 2023 event turned out to be the last to see a Caloundra Music Festival.