Record Crowd For Bluesfest’s 25th

Recently tallied figures for Bluesfest Byron Bay showed that the iconic Australian festival drew 104,526 patrons April 17-21.

Photo: Evan Malcolm Photography / facebook.com/bluesfestbyronbay
Nahko and Medicine for the People joins Xavier Rudd on stage for Bluesfest 2014 in Byron Bay, Australia. 

This was the 25-year-old event’s biggest audience, beating last year’s 104,244.

The silver jubilee boasted one of its strongest bills, with 109 acts. International names included Jack JohnsonJohn MayerBuddy GuyJeff BeckElvis CostelloDave Matthews BandThe Doobie BrothersIndia.ArieJoss Stone and Suzanne Vega.

Festival director Peter Noble said milestones were also set for the number of festival acts booked for headlining club shows (39), campers (5,660) and merchandise sold.

“We can stake the claim of being Australia’s pre-eminent music festival. With over 100 artists on offer already for Bluesfest 2015, we are soon moving into booking that event – so agents take notice – Bluesfest IS the event to play in Australia.”

More than 40,000 coffees, 4,000 cups of chai and 200 litres of soy milk were consumed over five days, as were 1400kg of noodles, 1 tonne of meat, 350kg of lettuce, 3,500 boiled eggs and 20,000 donuts.

Four tonnes of organic waste from the festival was given to a local pig farmer. Landfill was converted into methane gas to power 10,000 homes in the nearby Ipswich area. This year, Bluesfest raised a record A$55,000 ($51,470) for Cystic Fibrosis.