Festivals & Venues Update: June 16
SPILT MILK SELLS OUT IN 20 MINUTES
Canberra’s Spilt Milk sold out in under 20 minutes yesterday on its opening day for tickets, with promoters responding it as “truly overwhelming,”
It’s the second consecutive year where it hit full capacity in less than an hour. The music, food and arts event draws 20,000 punters.
Ticketing agency Moshtix has a waitlist feature where sellers can trade unwanted tickets on October 3.
Lorde, Vance Joy, Tash Sultana and Alison Wonderland headline in Commonwealth Park on November 25.
BLUESFEST BOOKING FOR 2018
Bluesfest Director Peter Noble announced that he has started booking acts for the 29th instalment of the event, which is held between Thursday March 29 to Monday April 2 2018.
Noble says, “The event covers just about every type of music, from contemporary to the legends, from jazz to hip hop [and] R&B….from the roots to the fruits, with a good dose of blues at the base.”
This year’s Bluesfest drew 110,000 with a bill hailed as one of its best ever.
FIRST TRAIN TO DASHVILLE
The first round of artists for Americana and psychedelia freakout Dashville Skyline (Friday September 29 to Sunday October 1) include Cash Savage and The Last Drinks, William Crighton, Immigrant Union, Claire Anne Taylor, Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes, Pony Face, Emma Russack and Roadhouses.
International acts include Mark Olson & Ingunn Ringvold from US and Norway, Tim Easton from Nashville, Dan Tuffy’s new musical project Songs From Dan (an expat based in the Netherlands), Mel Parsons from NZ and The Roamin’ Jasmine from the colourful streets of New Orleans.
GOLD COAST’S EVE EYES SUITORS
Eve nightclub owner James Tweddell has addressed rumours that the Broadbeach, Queensland, venue was going on sale. “It is, if someone comes up with the right price,” he quipped to the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Eve targets an older crowd than other venues on the Glitter Strip and was a magnet for cast and crew of Pirates of the Caribbean.
ROYAL CROQUET CLUB FIRM HEADS FOR ADMINISTRATION
Adelaide Fringe Festival favourite Royal Croquet Club are putting their company The Social Creative into administration with debts of $1 million.
Last August, one of Adelaide’s sister cities Qingdao was inviting a number of arts and music events to its state-run International Beer Festival which is said to draw 4 million a year,.
Royal Croquet invested $2.4 million to set up a site called Royal Adelaide Club and was glibly promised by the Qingdao Government they’d get 50,000 visitors a day.
Instead, Tom Skipper and Stuart Duckworth told Radio 5AA, they budgeted for 7000 and got 700 patrons a day. An unidentified creditor has hit Royal Adelaide Club for $279,456.
Promises made that alcohol from SA for the project would not face import tax were not true: The Social Creative had additional taxes of $200,000.
MUSIC AUTHORS AT LITERARY FESTIVAL
Among those featured at Byron Writers Festival (August 4—6) are Jimmy Barnes, Tex Perkins, Sarah Blasko, Holly Throsby and Mark Holden who turned their talents to books.
Barnes will discuss his bestselling and industry award-winning Working Class Boy. Perkins will reveal his new autobiography Tex written with Stuart Coupe.
The two frontmen will come together for an ABC Radio National session with presenter Sarah Kanowski.
Barnes will also appear in conversation with Matt Condon at a separately ticketed event at Lennox Head Cultural & Community Centre on Saturday August 5.
Blasko will feature in a one-on-one conversation with The Saturday Paper’s Erik Jensen.
Throsby is booked in for the session Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Writing Process with US novelist Kayla Rae Whitaker, novelist and poet Heather Taylor Johnson and writer Jerath Head.
Blasko and Throsby come together in the Music Makers session.
Blasko will also perform live at a separately ticketed event at Byron Theatre on August 5 called Bedtime Stories where writers John Safran, Jennifer Down, Erik Jensen and Hannah Kent will retell their books as if for children.
Holden will talk about the TV and music industries, as exposed in his warts-and-all tome on his days as Australian Idol judge, My Idol Years.
He will also come together with composer, writer and presenter of ABC Radio National’s Music Show host Andrew Ford for the session Music Memoir.
FIRST ROUND FOR MULLUM
The first round of acts for NSW’s Mullum Music (November 16—19) are Jon Cleary & The Monster Gentlemen, Frazey Ford, Marlon Williams & The Yarra Benders, Lindi Ortega, Too Many Zooz, Z-Star Delta, Gabriel Garzón-Montano, The East Pointers, The Teskey Brothers and Jazz Party.
Another 70 will be unveiled in coming months.
SUPREME COURT BATTLE OVER WHO OWNS CLUB ASSETS
Tim Martin, the general manager of Gold Coast nightclubs Sin City and Bedroom, made what he thought was a good business deal when he bought $99,000 worth of the interiors of financially embattled Shooters nightclub across the road to install in a new venue he plans to start.
The deal was done last year with the club’s former operator Shooters JV Pty Ltd just before it went into administration.
Now Shooters JV’s liquidators have taken the matter to Supreme Court.
They say that all the interiors – including tables, chairs, sound system, even the dishwasher – belong to Shooters JV, and that these should be sold independently to pay creditors (including 45 staff).
AUDIENCE JUMP FOR BAY OF FIRES WINTER?
The crowds turned out for Bay of Fires Winter Arts in Tasmania June 10—12. Total attendance had not been finalised but Festival Director Heidi Howe was expecting 5000 – which was 1000 more than last year when wet weather kept crowd numbers down.
LARGER SITE FOR WOLLOMBI MUSIC
This year’s 8th Wollombi Music in NSW (September 30) is moving to a larger site. This is on the account that the rock, folk and roots event has sold out in the last three years.
Headlining are Sydney duo Lime Cordiale and Darwin soul singer Caiti Baker.
NEW OWNER FOR THE GREENWOOD
Popular North Sydney live music venue The Greenwood has a new owner, Simon Tilley, who bought it for $10.1 million.
Previous owners Balmain Pub Group have been divesting their pub assets since the death of a senior partner.
Tilley plans to install new toilets and upgrade the gaming room. He is also upgrading the Verandah in the CBD which he bought in February and takes over in July.
MELBOURNE VENUE CALLS FOR DRUG DETAILS
Following a spate of drug overdoses in Melbourne’s nightclub strips – six in one weekend, and four in one club, mostly from GBH – the city’s nightclubs are calling on the drug squad to work closer with them to identify drug dealers to stop them from entering.
Martha Tsamis, owner of Inflations on King Street, which has ID scanners, told theAge she had asked police to give them details, but had been turned down due to privacy concerns.
“We believe the wider community is more deserving of protection than known drug dealers and that it is time that the police took stronger action to weed out harmful drug use,” she told the newspaper.
HERITAGE LISTING SUBIACO OVAL
Perth’s Subiaco Oval aka Domain Stadium, one-time 43,500-seat home of festivals as Summadayze and Origin NYE Festival, could have its playing surface heritage listed. Subiaco councillors start a bid next week.
There’s a fierce debate as to what ought to happen when AFL games and concerts move to the new 60,000-seat Perth Stadium in 2018.
One is to build a school, to alleviate severe overcrowding at schools in the area.
Although a sports venue, its biggest attendances were for two music acts – Adele this February drew 65,000 and U2 brought in 55,000 in December 2010.
Ninth on the attendance list, after six WAFL grand finals, were AC/DC with 48, 247 in March 2010.