Music festival Northern Bass, due to take place in Kaiwaka on the weekend of January 28, has been cancelled, with organisers citing low vaccination rates in Northland and the threat of Omicron.
An announcement made on social media said they had tried "everything" to make the event happen, but decided they could not take the risk of going ahead.
"It's been a long few weeks of ups and downs and thanks to so many of you for sticking with us through it all, but at the end of the day, we had to make the decision that keeps the majority as safe as possible," the statement read.
"We had to consider the Northland vax rates just not being what they need to be, the growing threat of Omicron, headliners who couldn't travel due to being positive for COVID and all of the festivals that ended up as locations of interest.
"It's just not a risk we can take, a risk we can put Northland at, or a risk we can expose you all to.
"We never thought it would come to this. We tried everything to keep the Jan dates alive, but the picture now is not the same as it was when we originally postponed."
Northern Bass was initially scheduled to take place on New Year's Eve, and was postponed until January 28 - 30 while the organisers waited for Northland to shift out of the red traffic light setting. The Government is not due to review the COVID-19 Protection Framework setting for the region until next week.
At the time of writing, the Northland DHB has the lowest vaccination rate in the country, with 85 percent of eligible residents fully vaccinated.
