Record Crowd For Bluesfest’s 25th

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 Johnson, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello, Dave Matthews Band, Doobie Brothers, India.Arie, Joss 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.