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Bluesfest’s Second-Largest Crowd
“The rains came, some of the headline artists didn’t come, however it seems like we just had our second biggest festival ever because the blues and roots fans know that Bluesfest is the place to be at Easter,” said festival director Peter Noble.
Photo: TaoJonesPhotographer.com
at Bluesfest 2015.
Bluesfest April 2-6 in Byron Bay’s Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm in Australia drew 105,000 people, organizers said. This was despite The Black Keys and Lenny Kravitz pulling out in the weeks before, for an arm injury and scheduling conflict respectively.
Despite a week of severe storms and flash flooding, the 2015 crowd figures beat the 104,244 of 2013. The festival’s record stands at 115,000 in 2011 when Bob Dylan headlined. Among the artists receiving standing ovations were Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals, Zac Brown Band, Alabama Shakes, and Paolo Nutini. Equally as exciting were Jack Johnson, G. Love, Donavon Frankenreiter and Keb Mo jumping onstage for each others’ sets. Jack Johnson wasn’t even on the bill.
Frankenreiter remarked, “I love this festival more than any other festival that I’ve been a part of … it’s the best crowd I’ve ever played in front of too.”
Among international managers and agents attending were Kevin Morris (Red Light Management), Brian Cohen (WME), Tom Chauncey (Partisan Arts), Matthew Morgan (CAA Nashville), Rob Holden (Mondo Management), David Wolff (David Wolff Productions), Peter Himberger (Impact Artist Management), David Bartlett-(525 Worldwide).
Also on that list were John Huie (CAA), Betsy McHugh (Martingale Entertainment), Urs Guentert (Sun Music), Dean Raise (C3 Management), Sandy Pandya (Pandyamonium Management) as well as Michael Bawden, Adam Schlossman, Caroline Henry and Raan Williams.