Bluesfest nominated for global Music Festival of the Decade gong
After its shock cancellation just before the Easter break, Bluesfest Byron Bay has been busy working out a new date, getting Government funding, and joining the music industry’s call for a business interruption fund.
And now, it’s been nominated for Music Festival of the Decade at the 32nd Pollstar Awards on June 16 in Los Angeles.
The Australian event, which draws 100,000 patrons, is up against Austin City Limits in Austin, Texas; Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee; Coachella in California; Corona Capital in Mexico City; Electric Daisy Carnival in Mexico City; Glastonbury, UK; Lollapalooza Brazil in Sao Paulo; Lollapalooza in Chicago; and Outside Lands in San Francisco.
The criteria is to “celebrate the most artistically and commercially successful festival of the last decade providing the most rewarding experience for fans and artists”.
Bluesfest’s festival director Peter Noble said the nomination is something for his hard-working team to be proud after a tumultuous time.
“After all we have been through since the start of the pandemic, with two cancellations, including one which occurred the day before we were all set and ready to open our gates, it is a pleasure to be offered something positive for Bluesfest,” he said.
Noble said that to be nominated alongside the other festivals “is simply up there with the greatest things that has ever happened in my 50 years in the industry”.
Bluesfest has been nominated for Best International Music Festival in nine of the last 10 years in the Pollstar Awards.
“Bluesfest is the only Australian festival to be nominated for this award in over a decade,” Noble noted.
Recently, Bluesfest has also posted on its website some of the issues it faced when the NSW Government closed it down one day out without discussing other options.
Already on site were 500 campers, 2,000-plus team workers, 200 media, 79 stallholders, and caterers who had prepped over $30,000 worth of food which then went to charity.
2,500 workers, 140-plus trucks and flatbeds, 80-plus semi-trailers, 72 lighting towers and 42 generators had built up the site.
19,500 chairs had been trucked in and laid out, then re-packed and trucked out.
The last of the 500 lanterns had just been strung by hand when news came though.
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