Impresarios who gave Byron Bay the Bluesfest

Ahead of the 30th Bluesfest, the founder and his former partner reveal how they built one of the nation’s biggest festivals.

Byron Bay Bluesfest director Peter Noble in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

What began as an indoor gig that could hold 1500 people at a former piggery has ballooned into an outdoor festival that has become one of the biggest events on the annual Australian music calendar, hosting about 100,000 people on 50ha across five days.

Bluesfest is the sort of widely loved fixture that music-mad families plan their year around.

And with the 30th iteration of the event set to begin near Byron Bay in NSW on the Easter long weekend, any appraisal of its colourful history must begin with what was once known as the Arts Factory.

Founded by Keven Oxford under its original name of the East Coast Blues Festival, the first event was organised and held at a time when the nation’s music industry infrastructure was both nascent and disparate.

Oxford didn’t consider himself a blues aficionado — his ears were more attuned to roots and folk — but after attending the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1988 he decided to do something about the gap in the Australian market.

“In the 1980s, every time I’d head to the US I’d always find myself at a festival of some sort, and I always had a great time,” Oxford tells The Australian.

“Then I’d come back here and think, ‘Man, why isn’t there any festivals in Australia?’

“In the late 80s there was just nothing around other than the Maleny Festival — which turned into Woodford [Folk Festival] — and the National Folk Festival.

“They were the two events that stuck around.”

Founder Keven Oxford stepped away in 2004. Picture: Kirra Pendergrast

As one of the bookers at the Byron Arts Factory — a space once used as a pig slaughterhouse — he was already in touch with international acts, as the venue had been established as one of the few regional stops on the national touring circuit, hosting the likes of New Order, the Ramones, Marianne Faithfull and Bo Diddley.

The debut festival in 1990 was designed as four nights across the Easter long weekend, with a total of 6000 tickets. And with headliners such as the Charlie Musselwhite band and Canned Heat, Oxford was pleased to see that it sold out, as it meant his instincts were true — that there was a considerable audience for blues and roots acts, and it appeared people were willing to travel to Byron Bay, which at the time was hardly the tourist attraction it is today, for this experience.

“The first one was fantastic,” Oxford says.

“I had a lot of people writing to me, so I got a mailing list together, and the rest is history. I took it outside in 1993 [at Belongil Fields] and lost a bit of money.

“I thought, ‘Hang on, maybe I should find a partner.’ Peter Noble was one who put his hand up. I’d worked with him before.

“We never had a great relationship, but that’s not necessary if you’re both on the right page.”

Noble’s music career began as a bassist in the 60s. Over time his immersion in the industry led to booking jazz clubs and festivals in the US and managing the record label Aim after returning to Australia in the early 80s. Its notable releases include an album by American rapper Tupac Shakur, who was killed in 1996, and a release by zydeco musician Terrance Simien that earned Aim Records a Grammy Award — the first such award won by an Australian independent label — in the Cajun music category in 2008.

His overseas connections helped land acts such as English blues artist John Mayall and put Noble in good stead to become a co-director of Oxford’s festival from 1994 onwards.

“Bluesfest was always a festival formed by people that love music,” Noble tells The Australian.

“We were on a crusade to bring the blues to Australia. It was never about money, but we knew we needed to pay our bills. It was never started with any great business plan, and it still has some elements of that. And so it should have, because it’s about music.”

Noble bought into the festival by paying off some of the debts it had accrued after the two-day outdoor event at Belongil Fields in 1993. The following year it turned a small profit. At the 1996 event the directors booked American blues singer-songwriter Ben Harper, who was handed a prime night-time slot before a largely unfamiliar audience.

He would go on to become a firm fan favourite. This month will mark his 12th appearance at the festival — the sixth with his band the Innocent Criminals.

Festival stalwart Ben Harper.

Its name was extended to the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival in 1997, then abbreviated to Bluesfest in 2004, the year its founder decided to step away.

“When Noble and I parted company it came down to both of us trying to outbid the other to buy each other out,” says Oxford.

“It was a no-win situation to continue together. It was just that we’d had enough of one another. It was a tough thing to sell because the festival was always my retirement plan. But I’m stoked that it’s still going. It’s a trip to see where it is now.”

Under Noble — sole director and owner since 2008 — the festival’s recent headliners have included Bob Dylan (2011), Santana (2013) and, in 2016, American hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar.

Despite the festival’s name, today the blues is just one of many genres that are booked each year and, judging by the consistent number of attendees, the audience is unperturbed by this deviation from its origins.

According to Noble, sales for this month’s event are at about 105,000 across the five days, which is not far off the peak achieved at the 2011 festival.

It’s also in line with Noble’s description of Bluesfest as a “big boutique event” for 25,000 people a day, with the Thursday traditionally being the toughest ask in terms of drawing a crowd ahead of the long weekend.

“I’m quite happy to stay where we are (at this size),” he says.

“The days of putting on a music festival and making more money than it cost and limping into the next one — they’re gone. The costs are huge and the profits very low.

“Many headliner artists have doubled their fee ask in the last five or six five years. There’s been a big change in the industry.”

Today, the former Arts Factory is home to the Byron Bay Brewery, whose name appears beside the likes of Optus and Jack Daniel’s as key corporate sponsors of Bluesfest, while the headliners this month include artists such as Harper, Jack Johnson Paul Kelly, Mavis Staples, Iggy Pop, Kasey Chambers and Jack White’s rock group the Saboteurs.

Given the upcoming landmark — the 30th festival — Noble was inevitably inclined to book a few old favourites to please a crowd whose average age is 45, but he is aware of the need to seed the soil with new acts for what lies ahead: “You can love the music from your generation, but it’s really good to be able to stay current. “I want to stay up with it — that’s my job.”

The 30th Bluesfest will be held at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, NSW, from April 18 to April 22.