Australia needs a new music festival that is on the same or greater level than that of the other major festivals around the world. I believe the venue is going to be important, beautiful surrounds, accessable, low impact to the environment. I invision this festival having a communal culture breeding a sense of connection between everyone involved – be that the crowd, the organisers, the bands and the security involved. This festival needs to be on a large scale incorporating a large variety of performers and facilities. I would like to see this festival spread over a number of days to allow all attending to really get into the festival spirit andf not feel ruched to see as much as possible in a short time like some other major concerts. This needs to also be economical and accessable. It would be great to see a festival that feeds our local music industry at the same time as attracting talent from all over the world.

Good Crowds

DIVERSITY

hippies

punks in love

Relaxed environment

camping

Supportive people

the thing that holds a concert together is the people looking out for each other

Good Music

BigDayOut main stage '04

This festival has been bringing some of the worlds biggest bands to Australia for the last 19 years.  This festival definately changed my life as a young teen growing up as I’m sure it has done for countless thousands of others around the country. However great this festival is though, I feel that there are a number of elements that realy let it down as a great festival.

Negatives of the BDO

The first thing that killed the big day out for me was the introduction of the infamous ‘D-barrier’

the infamous D-barrier

The D-barrier has been introduced as an attempt at crowd control in this festival. The basic idea behind it is that the number of people directly in fron of the stage can be controlled. This was an attempt to stop people at the front of the crowd from being squashed. This I believe has only created more issues and has taken away from the experience of the day. In order to actually get into the D-barrier you must first line up and wait for others to exit, this can mean waiting times of over an hour so if you’re wanting to see a favourite band up close it will need pre planning. Of course this means that you will need to sacrifice seeing other artists on other stages whilst in line. Once towards the front of the queue, people are herded like livestock in small groups through the fence (the push to this small window of oppurtunity often results in many people getting quite hurt on the awkward edges of the barrier). Once inside the D-barrier there are no Toilet or water facilities so if either are needed, it’s necesary to leave and go throught the whole horrible process.

I personally think that this tactic was a huge failure and have only bothered returning a few times since it’s introduction in 2001.

Another element that makes the big day out a little draining is the fact that som much is crammed into only one day.

ADELAIDE BDO TIMETABLE AND MAP

As can be seen above in the BDO timetable, there is an incredible amount of performances packed into one day of festival. While it’s great that there is so much on offer, unfortunately this format of presentation often results in having to miss a huge number of artists. Having so many things happening in so many places tends to create alot of tension from people wanting to be places constantly. I find it much more enjoyable to be able to just go with the flow of a festival and really get into the music plying rather than have to constantly think ahead of where you have to be by when.

My last beef with this festival is the lack of good quality reasonably affordably food and drink.

I've always found food at this festival to be pretty poor and very expensive.

roskilde at night

Held annualy in Denmark since 1971 Roskilde is one of Europes largest and most successful music festivals.

The thing I love about this festival is the whole idealism involved. This isn’t just a festival put on for capital gain, it is a not for profit organisation for the development and support of music, culture, and humanism in Denmark.

It would be such an amazing thing for the Australian music industry if we had a festival with the same ideals and to such  a huge scale as this.

Ok so I just felt that this blog needed some mud-covered scandinavians drinking beer in it....

(and yes this is relevant to the blog! lol)

a crowd shot from 1972's sunbury festival

Looking back to 1972 we had the start of a great annual festival  that played host to huge bands like Deep Purple, AC/DC, Queen and many more. Unfortunately after Three years the festival was rained out which faced the organisers with huge financial troubles.

I personally feel that the end of the Sunbury festival was a massive loss for Australia, I can only imagine how influential this could have been on the Australian music scene had it been a long running event. This demonstrates that good planning and financial strategies are hugely important elements to be taken into account when planing a festival.

Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts

Heres a quick little excerpt from Wikipedia to give the quick facts:

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or Glasto, is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world.^[1] The festival is best known for its contemporary music, but also features dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and many other arts. For 2005, the enclosed area of the festival was over 900 acres (3.6 km²), had over 385 live performances^[2] and was attended by around 150,000 people. In 2007, over 700 acts played on over 80 stages^[3] and the capacity expanded by 20,000 to 177,000.^[4]

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flooded campsite

ah even flooding rain can't keep fans away from this festival

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This festival is MASSIVE!

I think looking at both woodstock and glastonbury, the fact that these festivals are at a particular site rather than a commonly used venue adds to the connection that is felt to these festivals. Having a unique property adds to the character of a festival.

By far the most iconic music festival of all time was woodstockBack in 1969 this 3 day music festival made history. With over thirty bands and over half a million people attending, even forty years on the the music, iconography and idealism from this event is still around. You’ll find that even quite a few of us ‘gen-y’ kids will either own recordings from this (yep I have an old woodstock vinyl sitting in a milk crate somewhere) or at least be able to name artists that played there.

another iconic shot from the woodstock festival

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Hendrix's performance of 'star spangled banner' still sticks in my mind when thinking of this festival

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

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Aerial view of the woodstock festival

Australia has always loved it’s music. From the time that the first fleets hit our shores our country started to develop its own sounds of convict shanty’s (not to ignore the already rich but sadly somewhat lost native tribal sounds abound.) Although rich in it’s own talent, popular and alternative music in this country has always lived in the shadows of its European and american cousins. What we need is a new iconic festival to bring Australia out of the shadows and into the forefront of live music mecca’s.