Festival’s big top up
Country carnival has wet weather covered
THE Broadbeach Country Music Festival will expand its footprint for its fifth annual hoedown this year with an undercover big top stage in Kurrawa Park.
Event organisers Broadbeach Alliance have introduced the major new stage for this year’s event, from July 28-30, to help spread crowds throughout the precinct and alleviate congestion around the festival’s main stage in Surf Parade.
Alliance CEO Jan McCormick said the big top would ensure shows could proceed in the event of wet weather.
“We wanted to give country a different feel to Blues on Broadbeach,” she said.
“The main stage is still in Surf Parade but in the event of severe wet weather, like we had last year, we can fit 5000 people in the big top.
“We will also put a fairground in the park, with a ferris wheel and kids’ rides.”
A runaway success since it made its debut on the events calendar in 2013, this year’s country shindig boasts free shows by more than 25 acts including US group America, homegrown artists Troy Cassar-Daley, Kasey Chambers, Shane Nicholson, Travis Collins and Fanny Lumsden and local singer Brooke Lambert in the streets, parks, bars and restaurants of Broadbeach.
Almost 30,000 people attended the three-day festival last year – 33 per cent of them from the Coast, 36 per cent from intrastate, 29 per cent from interstate and two per cent from overseas. They injected more than $6 million into the local economy, with those who booked accommodation staying for an average 3.6 nights.
Mrs McCormick said bookings for this year’s festival weekend were tracking at 98 per cent.
“Bookings are very strong this year – there’s nothing else on in town that weekend so we’re assuming a lot of those bookings are for country,” she said.