Australia’s festival scene may be in its infancy compared to the UK’s but it is growing in popularity. The Aussies rarely need an excuse to party and their ranks are swelled by the ever-present backpackers.
The huge distances here mean the festivals have evolved in a slightly different way however. After all, most of the Britain’s population live within a few hours’ drive of Glastonbury, V or Reading/Leeds. Here it’s a matter of a few days.
So instead, the mountain comes to Mohammed; the big festivals tend tour the country’s main cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth although not necessarily all of them.
Largely because of this, the acts themselves are packed into just one day in each city and are rather smaller than a European festival regular will be used to you. Because of their urban locations and small size, they feel like a cross between Reading and one of the increasingly popular O2 Hyde Park gigs.
The exceptions are the Falls Festival in Lorne, Victoria, the Woodford Folk Festival north of Brisbane and Splendour in the Grass near the backpackers’ favourite haunt, Byron Bay. Falls is the closest Australia gets to Glastonbury with multiple stages, dance and chill-out tents and stand-up comedy.
Be warned though, the weather might not always be as kind as you might expect, in 2008 night-time temperatures at Falls plunged into single digits. Draconian alcohol rules also mean that punters can’t bring their own booze on-site, forcing them to either get smuggling or shell out festival prices for three days. Police searches are much stricter, police stopping just short of stripping the panels off cars.
The one-dayers – Big Day Out, Good Vibrations, and V – are more strictly regulated. As well as a ban on BYO, you can’t just grab a cold one and wander off to see your favourite bands. The bars are literally caged off from the rest of the festival site, and while they might be within sight of the stages, they are well away from the action. The result of course is that everyone spends the first hour or so getting tanked up or find other means of inebriation which leads to its own problems.
This year’s Big Day Out was marred by the ecstasy overdose death of 19-year-old, Gemma Thoms, who, seeing police sniffer dogs panicked and took her entire stash. Music promoters are now calling for UK style amnesty bins.
Jo Eaton, a festival regular from London who was at Big Day Out in Melbourne admits that the strong police presence did make it lose some of its ‘festival’ vibe but admits there are plenty of positives: “Sometimes it seems the locals are here for the beer with the music being incidental but the bar areas are a great place to meet people and there are plenty of Brits and Irish to swell the crowd in front of the stages.
“They also put the two main stages literally side-by-side and alternate the acts so there is always something going on. And of course there’s the sunshine!”
by Henry Biggs
