The immediate future of popular regional Victorian music festival is on a knife’s edge, as a local council mulls whether to cancel it four days before it’s set to begin.

Buloke Shire Council officers recommended the planning permit for the 2025 Esoteric Psychedelic Circus Festival in Donald be refused after festival organisers failed to provide the required information.

But the festival organiser has disputed this, saying he has received the relevant approvals from health and emergency services to run the bush doof.

In a statement, Buloke Shire Council said organisers provided insufficient information and despite two further requests for information in October and December a “satisfactory response” was not received.

Ticket sales for the 2025 festival continued without a permit and recent social media posts showed equipment and neon signs assembled on the festival grounds.

Buloke Shire Council’s decision comes after 250 festival goers reported gastroenteritis symptoms after attending Esoteric in March last year.

The Victorian Department of Health later confirmed an outbreak of Shigella – a highly contagious infection spread through contaminated food and faecal-oral route with symptoms including diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps and fever.

Buloke Shire Council chief executive officer Wayne O’Toole said the council had worked with event organisers, consultants and various emergency services since receiving the application last year.

“However, our officers are not satisfied that the health and safety concerns in relation to the safe running of the event have been met and are therefore recommending the planning permit application is refused”, he said.

“We understand the impact this decision will have on the event organisers, patrons and the local community, and acknowledge their disappointment, but we are also committed to ensuring any event within the shire is safe and compliant”.

Esoteric Music Festival managing director Sam Goldsmith spoke with this masthead and said he was shocked by the “roadblocks” from council and said festival organisers had “absolutely addressed everything to ensure this event will run safely”.

“ We’ve run this festival for eight years – with the exception of 2021 due to COVID-19 – and we’ve always submitted our applications around the same time and it’s usually approved within two to three months,” he said.

Goldsmith provided this masthead with written approvals from police, EPA, firefighters, health, water and transport authorities.

He said the festival expected between 9000 and 10,000 people and predicted a $15 million injection into the local economy.

Buloke Shire councillors will decide the festival’s fate at a meeting on Monday, March 3, four days before the event is scheduled to begin.

Goldsmith was confident councillors would vote in the festival’s favour.

“If things don’t happen that way, we will address that at the time,” he said.