Noble was covered for last year’s cancellation because he had taken the policy out pre-pandemic. This year he was not.

“We’ve dropped $10-11 million, a day before the festival,” he says. He can’t even begin to estimate the losses suffered by the various suppliers in the region - including the caterers who stocked up in anticipation of feeding 50,000 people over five days, whose food will mostly go to waste - but says there would be “600 or 700 workers on site, 250 just in our bars”.

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Noble isn’t alone in having pushed for governments to play the role of insurer of last resort - industry group Live Performance Australia is understood to have presented a proposal for a scheme, costed at $100-500 million over three years, last November - but he says there has been no clear response, despite the federal government introducing such a scheme for the film and television production sector in August.

“In my area [Byron Shire] alone the completion guarantors [who underwrite productions] could see they were covered and therefore put up the money so that Nicole Kidman could shoot [Nine Perfect Strangers], there was another shoot down here for Stan, there’s at least three or four movies occurred here in the last six months,” he says.

According to Screen Australia, which administers the $50 million Temporary Interruption Fund on behalf of the government, 24 film and TV projects with combined budgets of $152 million have taken advantage of the scheme (which covers costs incurred as a result of COVID-related shutdowns, delays or, in the worst-case scenario, failure to complete). Another 17, with combined budgets of $142 million, are in pre-production. To date the fund - to which productions contribute 1 per cent of the sum they wish to insure - has not paid out a cent.

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The federal government has given $1 million in funding to the festival via its RISE fund but when asked if there was a chance to underwrite insurance for Bluefest or the sector generally, federal arts minister Paul Fletcher said it was a matter for the states.

Noble is frustrated by the answer.

“Why is he taking that attitude, that ‘it’s not my issue’, when he’s the federal arts minister. It’s concerning because it is partially his issue. Why didn’t he say the film industry should have state-based policies? What’s the distinction?”

Minister Fletcher declined to respond on Friday.

Discussions with the NSW government have been more fruitful, Noble says, but there are no guarantees of financial help. “I’m in a position where I don’t know until they tell me.”

There is a possibility that the festival might yet be restaged at a later date, but there is no guarantee it would not still suffer considerable losses. Among other things, it’s likely that not everyone who planned to attend over the Easter long weekend would return at another date.

I could retire. I mean, how many times do you want to get cancelled?

Peter Noble

The impact, Noble says, is psychological as well as financial. “It’s about taking all of our confidence away, all of our trust that things will get better,” he says. “It’s all those people [in the industry] going, ‘Do I really want to be an ongoing part of this? I’ve had one gig in a year’, or ‘I’ve been a lollipop man while I waited but I can’t wait forever - I’ve got a family, a mortgage, car payments’. It’s all of that.”

Noble is hopeful a solution will be found that acknowledges the economic and cultural legitimacy of the industry and help it get back on its feet. “I think this is a watershed moment where it’s become apparent that we’re not going to be able to continue as an industry without it. No one’s going to invest.”

But if not, Noble says, he may have to sell the festival he has run for so long, developing it into an internationally recognised and respected - and much-rewarded - brand.

Or, he adds, “I could retire. I mean, how many times do you want to get cancelled?”

He’s not serious of course. He takes such pride in the room full of awards next to his office that turning his back on Bluesfest is close to inconceivable.

“It was one case of COVID,” he says. “I’m not an irresponsible person. We did everything right. I don’t want to have to sell my event, or even half my event, just to deal with this. And why should I?”