Mt Duneed Estate to host A Day on the Green’s The Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree featuring Geelong band Magic Dirt

A new music festival to be held across two stages is coming to Mt Duneed Estate, featuring a band legendary for its Geelong pub rock roots.

A new 12-band musical festival is coming to Mt Duneed in early 2023 to complement the existing international superstar-studded A Day on the Green event.

The Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree will be held at Mt Duneed Estate on March 4.

Twelve acts – including Geelong’s own Magic Dirt and US indie band Pavement and – will perform at the new A Day on the Green event.

Magic Dirt reformed in 2019.

Roundhouse Entertainment director Michael Newton said the event would complement the existing A Day on the Green offering.

“After 21 years and nearly 500 shows, it’s exciting to launch a new event to complement the A Day on the Green experience,” he said.

The festival will be performed across two stages at the estate’s newly developed top paddock.

Australian alt-rock band Spiderbait, alt-pop-rock faves Floodlights, San Diego rock’n’soulers The Schizophonics, Black Rock Band and punk trio Clamm have also been named in the line-up.

Spiderbait will be at The Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree. Source: Supplied

Tent Pole is the first collaboration between promoters Roundhouse Entertainment, Love Police and I OH YOU.

“Mt Duneed Estate is a great site, and with more bands to come we look forward to firmly stamping Tent Pole as a mainstay on the Victorian festival calendar for many years to come,” Mr Newton said.

Tickets go on sale on September 14 at 1.00pm local time from Ticketmaster.

Sting confirmed for A Day on the Green 2023

Geelong’s packed live music calendar will get another boost, with legendary singer-songwriter Sting due to hit the stage at A Day on the Green in Mt Duneed next year.

The 17-time Grammy Award winning singer is returning to Australia for the first time in nearly seven years as part of his highly acclaimed My Songs tour.

Roundhouse Entertainment, in conjunction with Live Nation, announced Sting would perform just four shows in Australia – with the Mt Duneed Estate performance booked for February 25.

The show will feature some of Sting’s most beloved songs, written throughout his career both with rock band The Police and as a solo artist.

Sting and Paul Simon perform at A Day on the Green Geelong in 2015. Picture: Mitch Bear

The 70-year-old will perform alongside his musician son, Joe Sumner, and will be accompanied by an electric rock ensemble.

Fans should expect to hear hits including Englishman In New York, Every Breath You Take, Roxanne and Message In A Bottle.

Throughout his illustrious career, Sting has sold more than 100 million albums from his combined work with The Police and as a solo artist, including five Australian number one albums and 20 Australian top 50 singles.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter James Reyne will also join the line-up.

Sting performed at Mt Duneed Estate in 2015 as part of a collaborative performance with Paul Simon.

A Day on the Green promoter Michael Newton said the Sting performance would be “really exciting” and was just one of several international acts secured for the venue.

Hugely popular acts The Killers and Crowded House are already booked to play at the venue later this year.

“These artists that have been around for such a long time with so many hits. You need to see those acts while they are touring in your own backyard,” he said.

“Sting’s had a massive career with so many songs he is going to be doing all of those songs from his entire career.

“It’s really exciting. We’ve known about Sting for some time and we all couldn’t wait to get this announcement out.”

Mr Newton said music lovers could expect more “high calibre” acts to perform at Mt Duneed Estate, with more announcements expected soon.

Tickets go on sale on September 16 at 11am through Ticketmaster.

Mt Duneed Estate’s mega expansion plans

Mt Duneed Estate could host thousands more million music fans annually under a bid to bolster its council permit.

A Day on the Green, on behalf of the Geelong winery, lodged a planning permit application with the City of Greater Geelong to amend the winery’s permit that allows it to host the live music events.

Under the changes, the winery would increase its maximum number of attendees from 20,000 to 25,000, while also increasing its maximum number of annual concerts from six to 10.

Elton John at Day on the Green

‘It should be noted however that not all concerts would attract this crowd number,” a letter to the city stated. “Many artists would attract crowds in the range of 12,000-20,000 which has been the dominant attendance size for concerts held over the past nine years.

“For any concert where we are proposing to sell over 20,000 tickets, the final 5000 … will only be allowed to purchase these tickets in combination with a bus ticket to the event. This will minimise any significant changes to the existing traffic management operations.”

Mt Duneed Estate first hosted A Day on the Green in 2013.

A Day On The Green gets bigger every year, and soon 2.5 million music fans could stream through every year. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

“We are now a marquee greenfield concert venue in western Victoria suited to holding large-scale concerts,” A Day on the Green event manager Eugene Brouwer wrote to the city.

“The live music scene … has evolved significantly, with outdoor concerts at wineries across the country establishing themselves as a staple of the touring music industry.

“As such, they require a site to have the capacity to accommodate the A-list international acts with crowds in the range of 18,000-25,000.”

The application will remain open to the public until September 27.

Originally published as Mt Duneed Estate to host A Day on the Green’s The Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree featuring Geelong band Magic Dirt