Bigsound Unveils ‘Biggest Ever’ Festival Bill

Budjerah, flowerkid, Hope D and Mia Wray lead the line-up for Bigsound 2022, in what organisers are billing as its “biggest ever” music festival.

Also confirmed for the 21st edition of Bigsound are Teenage Joans, Boy Soda, Dallas Woods, The Terrys and Adrian Dzvuke, just some of 100-plus acts booked for this year’s showcase festival.

Bigsound returns after a pandemic-plagued stretch which saw the industry pow-wow revert to a virtual event in 2020, and skip 2021 altogether.

If the volume of applications is a good induction, Bigsound has been sorely missed.

This year’s show attracted over 1,300 artist applications, with programmers boiling down that longlist to the 182, a figure up by 38 artists compared to the last in-person gathering in 2019.

“After spending a month reading and listening to a record number of applications, we are certain that the future of music is in safe hands,” comments festival programmers Ruby-Jean McCabe and Dominic Miller.

“Bigsound Showcase programming is a dream job so we would never complain, but it’s hard to put into words what a difficult time we had getting to this final lineup.”

The applications this year were “of an extremely high calibre, and we could have easily programmed another 180+ artists if we had the space,” they continue.

As borders reopen everywhere, and live music rebounds, a string of international acts are making the trip, including New Zealander JessB, Soaked Oats, Troy Kingi, TE KAAHU, Church & AP, MELODOWNZ and Jenny Mitchell.

As previously reported, Bigsound will this year shine a spotlight on country music.

Confirmed today (July 20), The Buckleys, Darlinghurt, Hinterland, Loren Ryan, Melanie Dyer, Taylor Moss and The Wolfe Brothers will take the stage.

Spread over the four days and three nights of Sept. 6-9, Bigsound will commandeer 21 venues in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

QMusic, producer of the annual industry gathering, expects 16,000 festival attendees to rock up, including 1,500 delegates for the in-person, daytime conference.

Speakers this time include Tarana Burke, the activist, author and founder of the #MeToo movement; Rebecca Black, the “Friday” viral star; Mushroom Group CEO Matt Gudinski; independent artist and advocate for change Jaguar Jonze (Deena Lynch); and Brisbane-based U.K. electronic artist Example (Elliot Gleave).

Visit bigsound.org.au for more.