Fans flock to ‘final’ Bluesfest but is it really the end?

A NEAR sellout crowd is expected to attend Bluesfest this weekend, with Crowded House, The Cat Empire and John Butler among the big-name acts taking to the stage for what was originally billed as its last hurrah.

A whopping 97 per cent of tickets had been sold earlier this week after its founder Peter Noble released a statement last August saying the 2025 edition would be its “final curtain call”.

But Noble has since walked back on the announcement, telling UK music industry magazine IQ it was largely a ploy to attract the attention of the NSW government, which he said declined to invest in Bluesfest during a challenging time for the economy while supporting “imported” events like South by Southwest.

But he said he would always find a way for Bluesfest to go forward and he was already booking the 2026 edition.

Bluesfest began as the East Coast International Blues & Roots Music Festival in 1990, with 6,000 attendees.

The biggest crowd recorded was in 2011, when legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan helped sell 115,000 tickets. The one-off event also ran for six days.

Last year less than 70,000 tickets were sold as the cost-of-living crisis ate into Australians’ disposable incomes, with this year’s event cut from five to four days.

Like many other festivals and events worldwide, Bluesfest had been struggling since the COVID-19 pandemic, with the 2020 and 2021 festivals cancelled due to lockdowns.

While it was able to go ahead after the 2022 Northern Rivers floods, heavy rainfall led to cars being bogged and some campsites experiencing flash flooding.

But the forecast is looking good for this weekend, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to high-20s predicted.

With parking for the weekend sold out, festivalgoers were being urged to buy bus tickets in advance to get to and from the festival site at Tyagarah, around 15 minutes’ drive north of town.

They were also being encouraged to download the Bluesfest app to plan what acts to see.

Other artists performing include Missy Higgins, CW Stoneking, Kasey Chambers, The California Honeydrops, Xavier Rudd, Vance Joy, Hilltop Hoods, Tones and I, Toto, Melbourne Ska Orchestra and Taj Farrant.