Splendour, Highway To Hell land wins at Australian Event Awards

Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay and the Perth Festival’s Highway To Hell tribute to Bon Scott had national wins at the Australian Event Awards this week.

They were held at Perth Arena on October 21 and streamed to three other cities.

Splendour 2019 took the gong for Best Tourism Event after it sold out in just hours, culminating in a total attendance of 42,500 patrons per day at North Byron Parklands and generating an estimated $66 million in gross regional product.

The festival had a second win when co-founder Jessica Ducrou, also co-CEO of Secret Sounds Group, was made Event Producer of the Year.

Judges stated: “An incredibly impressive individual, Jessica has done a remarkable job at creating events with a multitude of critical and influential stakeholders invested.”

Ducrou used her win to emphasise that she was accepting her trophy at a time when the live music industry “is unable to operate and is in dire straits”.

While state governments have relaxed restrictions to allow 40,000 people to gather at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium for football finals and 11,000 at Royal Randwick for the races in the interest of economic recovery, there has been no such assistance for our Australian music festivals, which employed 9,176 FTE workers and injected over $2.7B into the Australian economy in 2019.

“An 86% loss (economic and jobs) is projected for 2020,” Ducrou said.

“Not $1 of the federal funding for arts and entertainment businesses has reached the industry as yet and it won’t until January 2021. The live music and events industry need assistance now!”

Highway To Hell won Best Cultural, Arts or Music Event.

It was the finale event of the Perth Festival and marked the 40th anniversary of the burial of AC/DC singer Bon Scott in Fremantle.

With a rolling convoy of stages on the back o semi-trailers over 10km of Canning Highway, 144,000 people turned out to see various acts play Scott’s music.

Adelaide Fringe won the state award for Best Cultural, Arts or Music Event.

In the meantime, other major music events were also finalists.

Gold Coast Music Awards and Buskers by the Creek festival were up for Best Small Event.

Deni Play on the Plains Festival was nominated for Best Achievement in Marketing, Communication or Sponsorship for their work on the Deni Ute Muster.

Australian Festival Consulting, which put on the Australian Festival Industry Conference in Coffs Harbour was a runner-up in Best Achievement in Event Education or Training.