History of Australian Music Festivals

Australia hosts a wealth of Music festivals to satisfy every music lovers tastes, festivals showcase genres such as jazz, pop, rock, country, indie, folk and classical. From small to grand scale music festivals Australia can expose you to international Artists which headline at huge national festivals such as, The Big Day Out, Good Vibrations, V festival and Parklife. (Australia.com.2012).

If being at one with nature is more your thing then camping in the lush grounds at Queensland’s Woodford Folk Festival, the Falls Festival in Tasmania and Victoria or Splendour in The Grass in Byron Bay may be more suited to your musical tastebuds. Other annual festivals which may excite you is learning about the ancient Aboriginal music at the Northern Territory Garma Festival or open up your worldly musical mind with WOMADelaide and in true Australian style, don your cowboy hats and boots and head out to Tamworth for The Tamworth Country Music festival. If you love Music, Australia has some of the best musical experiences on offer. (Australia.com.2012).

For a comprehensive list of Australian Music Festivals CLICK HERE

The history of Australian Music Festivals is not well documented and is still being researched regularly for more documentation and history related information, but for now we will cast our minds back to the 1970’s which saw a boom in Rock festivals around Australia, although short lived only spanning over 5 years, Sunbury festival which was held over the Australia Day week-end was the most successful in that it kept enough financial stability to make it an annual event. (Midoztouch.com. 2010.)

Identified festivals throughout the period of 1970 – 1975 are:

· January 1970 - Australia's first rock festival, the "Pilgrimage for Pop", held at Ourimbah, NSW over the Australia Day weekend.
· 1970 - Victoria's first festival, at Launching Place, on New Year's Eve.
· January 1971: three separate festivals - the "Odyssey" Festival at Wallacia (NSW), the Myponga Festival in South Australia and a much smaller one-day festival at Fairlight (NSW)
· May 1971 - the Aquarius Arts Festival, held over eight days on the campus of the Australian National University in Canberra. Parts of this festival were filmed in colour by Phil Noyce and released as the 1-hour documentary Good Afternoon
· January 1972 - the inaugural Sunbury Festival, held over the Australia Day Weekend.
· April 1972 - the Mulwala Festival, held on the banks of the Murray River inland from Albury.
· 1972 – 1973 - the Bungool (NSW) Festival, held over the New Year holiday.
· January 1973 - the Great Ngaruawahia Festival in New Zealand.
· Jauary 1973 - the second Sunbury Festival.
· May 1973 - the Aquarius Festival at Nimbin, in northern NSW.
· January 1974 - the third Sunbury Festival.
· October 1974 - the Hillcrest Festival in South Australia.
· January 1975 - the final Sunbury Festival. (Midoztouch.com. 2010.)

Most local rock festivals throughout this time resulted in major financial losses and can be judged by its ‘obvious’ rock festival problems which can be seen through bad organisation, inadequate services and facilities, bad weather and crowd problems generally relating back to alcohol and drug consumption. (Midoztouch.com. 2010.)

In the 1960’s it is said that there were various outdoor concerts held throughout Australia and New Zealand, which were said to be free, one off and one day events. There were a few regular events which were notably free annual pop concerts, one of which was Melbourne’s Moomba festival. Moomba drew crowds of a large standard for Australia, the largest being when The Seekers headlined the Moomba festival in 1967, which till at least 2010 still holds the record for the largest crowd ever to attend a single Australian public event, which held over 200,000 attendees. (Midoztouch.com. 2010.)

A standard practice in the sixties was to have multiple acts on the bill, which forms the basis for a festival. The USA was a major influence on Australian Music festivals, in the USA two influential festivals were the International Pop Festival held in California in June 1967 and the Woodstock Festival of Arts and Music held in upstate New York in August 1969. Australia was influenced by these festivals which saw the boom of rock festivals throughout the early 1970’s (mentioned above) and was also influenced by the technological advancements in sound reinforcement. (Midoztouch.com. 2010.)

Moving forward in time Australia is seeing a trend of new festivals blossoming every year, amongst the introduction of new festivals Australia sees strength in its annual major music festivals since their creation.

A timeline of some of the most substantial and famous festivals throughout Australia’s late history:

· 1972 – 2012: Tammworth Country Musical Festival started in January. January 2013 planned.
· 1987 – 1994: Maleny Folk Festival first held. (moved to Woodford and re-named in 1994)
· 1990 – 2012: Byron Bay Blues Festival started, also called the East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival. Planned for 2013.
· 1994 – 2012: Woodford Folk Festival (replaced the Maleny Folk festival) Planned for 2013.
· 1996 – 2011: Homebake (features and all Australian line up) launched its first show in Byron Bay. Home bake was cancelled in 2010.
· 2001 – 2012: Splendour in the Grass – Moved to Woodford in 2010 and 2011, held in Byron Bay 2012.
· 2003 – 2012: Summafieldayze Gold Coast.
· 2006 – 2011: Parklife
· 2007 – 2012: Future Music Festival launched
· 2007 – 2012: Soundwave launched

Along with a host of large well known, international act drawing festivals, Australia still shines a great light on its smaller music festivals, and the future looks promising for the expansion of some of the greats.

One festival which has proven that expansion is possible is Splendour in The Grass. The festival started as a one day festival in Byron Bay in the famous Belongil fields in 2001; by 2002 the event had expanded to a two day event. Currently the event holds a capacity of 30,000 and the vent spans over three days hailing some of the worlds highly named international artists. (Wikipedia.com. 27 April 2012.)

And with the expansion of some festivals comes the down fall of others. There are many reasons why Australian Music festivals will blossom and others will falter, keep an eye out for the next instalment of the blog, as we go deeper into the reasons why.

References:

Australia.com. 2012. Australia’s Music Festivals.

Available: http://www.australia.com/explore/events/music-festivals.aspx . (accessed 26 April 2012).

Midoztouch.com. 2010. Music Festivals – An overview of the Australian Scene, 1970 – 1975.

Available:http://www.midoztouch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=95&Itemid=186&limitstart=10. (accessed 26 April 2012).

Brisbanetimes.com. 18 November 2010. Timeline: Australian Music Festivals.

Available: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/music/timeline-australian-music-festivals-20101118-17yht.html (accessed 28 April 2012).

Wikipedia.com. 16 February 2012. Homebake.

Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebake . (accessed 29 April 2012).

Wikipedia.com. 27 April 2012. Splendour In the Grass.

Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendour_in_the_Grass . (accessed 29 April 2012)

Blogger.com. 3 April 2008. Homebake History.