Luma Charitable Trust chairman Duncan Forsyth said there had been "countless sleepless nights ... but we cannot, in good faith, deliver the experience we want to".
Launching from a pilot programme in 2015, the event quickly became a must-do on the Queenstown calendar — in latter years, following the cancellation of the Destination Queenstown-owned Queenstown Winter Festival, and its pop-up Covid replacement Welcome to Winter, it has also been the event to herald the start of winter.
Mr Forsyth said the work required to deliver Luma, which had a budget of more than $1million, was "immense".
"The event requires extensive creativity, crew, logistics, artists, consenting requirements and operational costs, all compounded by limited commercial and grant funding.
"Even during this year’s event it was a challenge.
"The budget was completely spent, including all contingencies. There wasn’t a dollar left."
This year’s event, held over King’s Birthday weekend, attracted more than 32,500 visitors — 5000 down on last year — and involved 31 live performances, 25 aerial acts, 66 artists, DJs and performers, 27 light installations, 188 volunteers, almost 200 crew and more than 3000 children from over 15 schools.
While indebted to their funders and supporters, including the Queenstown Lakes District Council and Central Lakes Trust, the group’s situation was familiar to every event organiser in the country, Mr Forsyth said.
"It just wasn’t sustainable in its form".
He also said events funding was not designed as a "lifeline", but to help events get to a point where they were self-sustaining.
"We set out to do that, and with Covid and the cost of living, it makes it a really difficult task.
"We probably would have been there if it wasn’t for those things.
"If we can’t deliver an experience that we think is phenomenal, then we’re not prepared to do it half-hearted."
Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce chief executive Sharon Fifield said it was "gutting" to lose the event.
Mr Forsyth said while the trustees would continue working on ways to "evolve" the event, he was not making any promises about when Luma — in whatever form — might return.
"We look forward to flipping the switch on the next iteration of Luma again as soon as plans are finalised."
