Australia: Casey Barnes Eyes U.S. Market, First Vaccination Hub At Festival A Success

Singer-songwriter Casey Barnes is the toast of country music after scooping artist of the year a second time at the Gold Coast Music Awards.  He was also nominated for live act, song, and release of the year.

Barnes is second most played country artist on mainstream radio after Keith Urban, who also started his career on the Gold Coast. In January, when his next album drops, he will embark on his most extensive tour. “It’s unbelievable how good his live show is,” co-manager Michael Chugg told Pollstar.

The U.S. market remains a priority. He has been collaborating with Nashville songwriters Brown & Gray and recording there. “If it hadn’t been for COVID he’d have visited America three times in 2020 and a couple of times this year, and had a greater profile. We’ll start again once we get COVID out of the way,” Chugg added.

Of the quarter million YouTube views of current single “God Took His Time On You”, 67% were from the US, and generated much live interest and country radio airplay.

As the live sector urges en masse for patrons to get the jab, the first vaccination hub at an Australian music festival proved a success. The inaugural country/blues Savannah In The Round (Oct. 1-3) in Cairns in north Queensland had two vaccine tents operating on the first day.

“The heath authorities were looking at 200 vaccines and we reached that,” festival director James Dein of Sound Australia said to Pollstar. “The two tents were at it and there was no reluctance in people stepping forward.”

The first major music festival to stage in the festival post-COVID, Savannah In The Round was also set up as a tourism drawcard for the region’s Great Barrier Reef and the wider tropical Queensland. COVID restrictions delayed it by two and a half years. A month before, border closures saw 20 acts have to be replaced. The event drew the expected capped 11,000.