A New South Wales music festival has been cancelled just a week out from the event, and the organisers say it’s “another example of the government’s war on festivals”.

Mountain Sounds festival was due to be held on the central coast next weekend, but on Saturday the organisers announced it would not be going ahead.

It is the second NSW music festival to be cancelled this week – the Psyfari music festival cancelled its 2019 event scheduled for September – amid the publicity surrounding festival drug use and deaths.

In a lengthy post on the Mountain Sounds Facebook page, the organisers blamed “excessive costs, additional licensing conditions and the enforcement of a stricter timeline”.

“We, like many of you, have seen the festival climate continue to diminish in Australia. NSW in particular is in dire straits,” they said.

“This is yet another example of the government’s war on festivals.”

They said they had agreed to cut down the size of their site and cancel more than 20 acts to make sure they met newly-imposed safety, licensing and security costs.

However, they were then told they would have to pay an extra $200,000 for 45 police officers.

“This came one week out from the festival and blindsided us as we were quoted for 11 user pay police on the 18th of January,” they said.

They said in the Facebook post that they had been put in an impossible situation as it was unrealistic for them to pull the money together.

The Psyfari festival also took aim at the state government on Wednesday when they announced they were cancelling their event.

“While we had full intention of going ahead ... the current political climate surrounding festivals in NSW has made this something harder than ever before,” a post on Psyfari’s Facebook page said.

Organisers said “excessive rules, bans on BYO alcohol” and “overly heavy police presences” were not what they had in mind when they started the event – nor were festivals with a ticket price of $500.

“It seems likely that this is the way things are going, with one of the government’s best weapons being the ability to force excessive costs onto events in order to phase them out,” they said.

“We are unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when festivals are the new scapegoat of a failed government and their failed war on drugs.”

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, had been contacted for comment.