Premier Premier Malinauskas says the organisers of this year's Harvest Rock festival are "really struggling", with no news yet of a lineup for the state government-backed event scheduled for October.

Harvest Rock 2024 was scheduled for October 12 and 13. In March, the Adelaide City Council approved closing Bartels Road for the festival to take place across Rymill and King Rodney Parks.

With no lineup or ticket details forthcoming, Malinauskas said the state government had asked Harvest Rock producers what was happening.

“It’s precarious this year, so what we’ve seen around the country is music festivals effectively hit the fence,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.

The Premier said it was a tough time for music festivals nationally, citing Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival and Spilt Milk as cancellations so far this year.

The three festivals are produced by Secret Sounds – the same producer as Harvest Rock. Live Nation owns a majority stake in Secret Sounds, along with other music festivals, Ticketmaster and Moshtix.

Other South Australian festivals that have pulled the plug include Vintage Vibes and Groovin’ the Moo, due to economic challenges and lack of ticket sales.

“The economics of music festivals around the country and the availability of acts have become highly problematic ever since Covid,” Malinauskas said.

“What we’ve been communicated to us by Live Nation, who are the, you know, the curator and the producer of Harvest Rock is that they are really struggling.

“So only in the last sort of couple of days, as we started to hear this news, we’ve put to them that we want some clarity about what is happening there.”

Malinauskas said the state government was eager to support Harvest Rock and the lineup was crucial to attracting interstate visitors to Adelaide.

“We would like to see Harvest Rock go ahead,” he said.

“We’re committed to it, and we’re waiting to hear some advice from them pretty quickly.

“The key element is making sure that there’s the artists available that are going to generate the crowds who are going to pay the price we’re looking for, but most importantly, travel from interstate and Harvest Rock did fill up hotel rooms, because that’s one of the key objectives of the whole effort.

“So we’ll wait and see what they come back and advise us with, and hopefully we’ll have some clarity around that this week.”

In 2023, 22 per cent of Harvest Rock attendees were first-time visitors to Adelaide. 94 per cent of these visitors came to Adelaide specifically to attend Harvest Rock.

Last year’s lineup included exclusive Australian performances from Jamiroquai and Beck, with the inaugural Harvest Rock before it bringing in Jack White, Crowded House and Groove Armada among others.

The South Australian Tourism Commission, which funds Harvest Rock, also said it was waiting on direction from festival organisers.

“Harvest Rock has been embraced by South Australian and interstate audiences in its first two editions,” an SATC spokesperson said.

“We understand Secret Sounds, the organiser of Harvest Rock, is expected to make further announcements about the 2024 event soon.”

CityMag contacted Secret Sounds for comment.