Bluesfest director Peter Noble allegedly took hundreds of thousands of dollars out of his companies to pay himself prior to the collapse of the Australian festival.
According to an in-depth preliminary liquidator report published by insolvency firm Worrells last week (as per The Australian), Noble’s former companies owe around $7m to their creditors, with the firm claiming they may have traded while insolvent for several years.
Worrells’ report states that if this were the case, Noble could be found liable for millions of dollars in losses.
That’s not all.
Worrells principal Jason Bettles dug deeper in the investigation, telling creditors that he had reported Noble to the Australian Securities & Investments Commission over his role in the collapsed Bluesfest, which could result in Noble being banned as a director (or face other consequences).
The report alleged Noble had created a number of financial relationships between his 27 companies, which led two of his entities, Bluesfest Byron Bay and Bluesfest Enterprises, to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the use of the event site, the hiring of workers, and more.
According to the report, Noble had a series of contracts in place, some not cut at “market rates.”
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One such deal allegedly saw Noble rent his Tyagarah farm, the home of Bluesfest from 2010 until 2025, with the liquidator discovering a series of payments made to fund the rent that “did not consistently match the invoiced amounts”.
The agreement to rent the farm expired in January of last year, with no new contract being drawn up afterwards. According to the report, however, Noble’s company continued to pay another $333,000 in “rent payments” to another entity in the week leading up to Bluesfest’s collapse.
The company in question, the East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival Unit Trust, was paid a fixed annual fee of $950,000 plus GST by Bluesfest Byron Bay for use of the festival site. Noble was listed as a director of both companies.
“The timing and nature of these irregular payments, particularly the substantial payments made immediately prior to our appointment, is unusual and may be indicative of payments being made outside the ordinary course of dealings and may give rise to potential voidable transaction claims (including unfair preferences),” Bettles wrote in the report.
The liquidator further noted that financial records were updated in the days prior to their appointment, attempting to move a $143,370 debt to another of Noble’s companies.
“This balance appears to have been subsequently reallocated by way of a manual journal entry to another entity, Bluesfest Tours Pty Ltd, which is a creditor of the company,” Bettles stated. “As a result of this entry, ECBR no longer appears as a debtor in the company’s records. The basis for this adjustment is presently unclear and forms part of our ongoing investigations.”
According to the liquidator, Bluesfest Byron Bay, the company behind the iconic festival, may have traded while insolvent in 2024 and 2026, prior to its collapse in March, and only briefly recovered during a successful 2025 event, which Mr Noble had notably marketed as the final edition.
Following the collapse of Bluesfest in March, Noble seemingly saw the funny side when pressed about the collapse of his music festival.
In April, Noble was confronted for the first time since he called off the 2026 edition of Bluesfest and placed the festival into administration.
When asked questions by a reporter for The Australian, Noble simply offered a thumbs-up gesture to the camera, with no apology forthcoming to the 10,000+ Bluesfest ticket holders and raft of business owners significantly affected by the festival’s collapse.
Noble followed that up by laughing when asked about the allegations first reported in The Australian, with claims of constant bullying and verbal abuse of staff coming to light in the publication’s investigation.
