As the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras protest parade reaches the end of Oxford Street each year and moves into the Entertainment Quarter, it turns into a party. A big name such as Kylie Minogue, Dua Lipa or RuPaul is usually a centrepiece of the extravaganza.
But not this year.
On Tuesday, the chief executive of Mardi Gras, Jesse Matheson, announced the “heartbreaking” cancellation of the party in an email. Mardi Gras had run at a “significant financial loss” for the past two years, he said, and the party had run at a deficit since 2020.
Tickets for the party would normally go on sale in November, with acts for the event announced by January. But in this, its 48th year there was no headliner announcement and no ticket sales.
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The cancellation of the much-anticipated after-party just weeks out from the 28 February parade has raised questions about the organisation’s decision to bring in a third party to plan the event, amid division over the future of the festival.
No longer a ‘cash cow’
Matheson said the cancellation was about stabilising the organisation amid an “existential threat” to the future of Mardi Gras due to sponsorship uncertainty.
In its 2025 annual report, Mardi Gras posted a small net operating surplus of $401,750. However, the organisation said at the time a number of events had fallen well short of budget expectations. It also said the surplus was due to American Express providing its sponsorship funds early, after deciding to end its principal sponsor status with Mardi Gras ahead of schedule.
Matheson thanked Kicks and Bizarro, two subsidiaries of the entertainment giant Live Nation, in his email. They were brought on in 2026 for the first time to deliver the party, which Mardi Gras had previously run itself.
The agreement was signed last year for five years, with a possible five-year extension. The sense was that a large multinational company would be able to provide big headline acts and the party itself.
So where did it all go wrong?
The official Mardi Gras after-party was once seen as a cash cow for the festival, but the 2025 annual report showed ticket sales – $200 a head for the 10,000 capacity event – had fallen short. The revenue for the party last year was $1.36m, compared with the $1.5m it cost to put on the event, leading to a loss of more than $143,000.
“After reviewing the Mardi Gras party’s financial performance, capacity constraints following the loss of the [Royal Hall of Industries], community feedback, and changing demographics of attendees, it became clear that the event in its traditional format was no longer fit for purpose or aligned with our future vision to be a celebration event for our entire LGBTIQA+ community,” Matheson said.
He blamed the cancellation on the loss of a headline act in late January that had not been announced, and the cost of running the event.
But two members of the group Pride in Protest, which would like to see the festival take more of an activist stance, blamed the outcome on Kicks and Live Nation.
Wei Thai-Haynes, a member of Pride in Protest and a former Mardi Gras board member, said in a statement the party had been “ruined” and questioned the decision to outsource the signature event, while Miles Carter, a spokesperson for Pride in Protest, said bringing in Kicks was “a horrific mistake”.
Pride in Protest has been critical of Live Nation’s involvement in Mardi Gras since it became a target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, when the Instagram account for Live Nation Israel expressed support for the IDF on 7 October 2023.
Live Nation declined to comment.
The cancellation will be a boon for smaller, unofficial Mardi Gras after-parties, with events such as Poof Doof and Heaps Gay experiencing a surge in sales.
Some believe that rather than bringing in an international promoter to run the party, these community-run parties should have been the first port of call for Mardi Gras when planning the event.
DJ Dan Murphy, who created the I Remember House and Club Broadway events, posted on Instagram that he had privately offered his assistance to Mardi Gras, but was now doing so publicly.
“If there’s any way I can help contribute to make next year’s party unforgettable, I’d love to put my hand up to help,” he wrote.
Division over future direction
Mardi Gras has been through a turbulent period of late.
In November, a highly contested annual general meeting saw two groups – Pride in Protest and Protect Mardi Gras – sparring over differing positions on the future of the festival.
Pride in Protest is against the involvement of corporations and police in the event, while Protect Mardi Gras argues that excluding corporations and police would turn Mardi Gras into “a space for division”.
Three motions that passed at the AGM were rejected by the board in January. They included: a motion calling for Mardi Gras to condemn the Trump administration and encourage participants to put trans rights in the spotlight; a motion calling for anti-discrimination reform; and a motion calling for Mardi Gras to pursue full public funding instead of corporate sponsorship.
The board’s co-chairs, Kathy Pavlich and Mits Delisle, told Mardi Gras members the organisation would not implement those motions, in line with obligations under Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commissioner governance standards “and the need to ensure all decisions align with Mardi Gras’ values, strategic priorities, and long-term sustainability”.
The pair said that board members had been “subject to personal and harmful commentary online, as well as a coordinated email campaign seeking to influence governance and decision-making”.
At the end of January, two directors of the Mardi Gras board who are also members of Pride in Protest, Luna Choo and Damien Nguyen, were censured and locked out of their official Mardi Gras email accounts for using them to reply to members in support of the pro-trans and public fundings motions. Both said they were replying in a personal capacity.
The co-chairs argued that the email accounts are for directors solely carrying out their governance responsibilities and not for campaigning or advocacy.
The censure also cited a conflict of interest, which is understood to be related to the two members being part of a political group, Pride in Protest, that had not been declared.
On Thursday, the NSW shadow arts minister, Chris Rath, told NSW parliament he wanted the state government funding for Mardi Gras to be reviewed because it was “essentially going bust”.
The Liberal MP – a gay man who said he has marched in at least three Mardi Gras – said activists “are trying to hijack Mardi Gras” and “import foreign conflicts to our city”, with the Liberal party and police threatened with a ban from marching.
“Mardi Gras should be for everyone,” he said. “For the police to march, for the Liberal party to march, for Jews to be able to march and feel welcomed. That’s why it should be for everyone.”
“I don’t think the community is keen on being told what to do by the NSW Liberals,” Charlie Murphy, a Pride in Protest member and former Mardi Gras board member said, responding for the group.
The Minns government rejected the call for a review.
“To suggest that the New South Wales government should review its funding commitment to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras based on a group of people who do not represent all of the board, or indeed all of the membership of Mardi Gras, is an extraordinary step,” the environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said.
As the accusations roll on, the parade is expected to bring tens of thousands of visitors to Sydney in a matter of weeks. But long after the glitter has washed off Oxford Street, the financial headwinds and political divides facing the event will remain.
