BRISBANE, Australia — Bluesfest Byron Bay will wave bye-bye after its 2025 version.
The occasion is an establishment on the Australian festivals calendar, staging performances from the likes of Bob Dylan, BB King, Paul Simon, John Mayer, Mary J Blige, and Kendrick Lamar, plus homegrown stars Chilly Chisel, Midnight Oil and Crowded Home, throughout its 35-year historical past.
Its place and time is exclusive, introduced every year over the Easter lengthy weekend, the ultimate fest of the hotter months, doing so from its house of Byron Bay, the picturesque seaside city that sits on probably the most easterly level of Australia.
“To my Pricey Bluesfest Household, and after greater than 50 years within the music enterprise, Bluesfest has been a labour of affection, a celebration of music, group, and the resilient spirit of our followers,” writes Peter Noble, Bluesfest pageant director.
After the 2025 fest, “as a lot because it pains me to say this, it’s time to shut this chapter,” he continues.” Subsequent 12 months’s pageant is “positively” occurring, “however it is going to be our final.”
Bluesfest is among the most-popular, and longest-running, multi-day exhibits of its variety in Australia. Its organizers boast a swag of home and worldwide awards, together with a number of Helpmann and Pollstar trophies.
Historical past apparently means little in a market the place the cost-of-living disaster, altering ticket-buying habits and a slew of things are crushing the wider festivals enterprise.
No model is immune.
This 12 months alone has seen a exceptional lineup of casualties, together with Splendour In The Grass, Groovin The Moo, Spilt Milk, Caloundra Music Pageant, Harvest Rock and others.
Throughout its heyday, Bluesfest averaged 85,000 attendees. That determine swelled to 102,000 in 2022, when reside music returned from the lockdown years. The latest present, nonetheless, counted fewer than 65,000 attendees.
When Bluesfest collected the perfect pageant award at Selection Australia’s Stay Biz Breakfast in June, Noble, talking from the rostrum, delivered a rallying cry for pageant organizers in these significantly robust occasions.
“We’ve actually bought to be as one as an trade. We have to converse to authorities,” he remarked. “We have to say that is the time you assist our trade as a result of we face an extinction occasion and that occasion may be checked out through the occasions of COVID, authorities delivered a whole lot of funding… come on authorities. Give us a hand up, we don’t need a handout. We are able to get by way of this as a result of our trade is price it.”
The ultimate version of Bluesfest will likely be a four-day occasion, from April 17 to twenty, 2025, on the 300-acre Byron Occasions Farm, about 7 miles north of Byron Bay.
The primary artist announcement for Bluesfest 2025 will likely be made subsequent week. “This ultimate version is not only the top of an period,” reads an announcement, “it’s a celebration of every little thing that Bluesfest has stood for over the previous 35 plus years – music, group, and unforgettable experiences.”
