Festival’s world first
A CITY in Western Australia is boasting of hosting the first COVID-safe music festival.
But Queensland will beat them to the punch by about three weeks with a hotly anticipated Far North Queensland country music festival.
The Good Day Sunshine festival, being held at Busselton, south of Perth, on October 31, has been promoted as the first of its kind in the world.
However, the Savannah Summer Series, announced in July, will bring a top lineup of Aussie country artists to Cairns and Mareeba almost a month earlier on October 1-3.
Originally planned for the Queen’s Birthday weekend, the Savannah in the Round festival was postponed due to the COVID pandemic and then reset as two events.
Managing director James Dein said it was a major undertaking to implement a COVID-safe plan for shows at Cairns and Mareeba.
“It took hundreds of hours of work to put all this together by many people, adding up to an 80-page operational manual,” he said.
“We were scheduled to announce our major large-scale festival on March 16, and on March 13 the world changed.
“We’ve chosen to move the large-scale Savannah in the Round festival to October 2021, and in its place reformatted the 2020 events into the summer series of smaller festivals.”
The first event on October 1 at Cairns Salt House will be limited to a crowd of 400.
Everyone must be seated to consume food or alcohol. There will be a standing area, but dancing is not allowed.
The October 2-3 events at Mareeba Rodeo Grounds are a different beast altogether, with allocation for a capacity of 1500, plus production staff.
Seating will be divided into three sections, and everything has been set up with 1.5m social distancing between groups in mind.
People seated in the middle of the arena can bring their own chairs and rugs to make the most of the space.
Mr Dein said he hoped their efforts would set an example to music festivals worldwide.
“It’s fantastic to be the first music festival in the COVID world,” he said.
“We want people to hear about this as far away as Nashville. The show’s going to be a blast, with top-notch sound production and lighting and some of Australia’s best country artists, established and new.”
Country music icon Lee Kernaghan will play the festival alongside Casey Barnes, The Buckleys, Saltbush Six, The Roadtrippers, The Ayres Rockettes and Central Queensland’s Camille Trail.
Mr Dein said the camping spots for 500 guests had already sold out, and tickets were selling well at about 60 per cent across all three days.
Book tickets at the website savannahintheround.com.au