Hollie Smith

Hollie Smith is the headline music act for Nelson’s MarchFest craft beer festival as part of the ‘‘strongest line-up in years’’, organisers say. Smith, the New Zealand soul singer-songwriter, will be performing at the 11th edition of MarchFest at Founders Heritage Park next year. It was a case of the festival benefiting from the misfortune of a cancelled concert tour.

MarchFest organiser Mic Dover said they had approached Smith months ago but she had been fully booked.

But the cancellation last month of the Winery Tour in which she was scheduled to play freed up her availability for the craft beer festival.

Smith, who’s based in Wellington, received nominations for Best Album and Best Female Artist at the 2016 NZ Music Awards.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the jazz and soul artist’s iconic album Long Player, which came out at No.1 on the New Zealand music charts and went on to achieve double-platinum status.

The album established Smith as one of the country’s most recognised voices and won her a slew of music awards, including Best Female Solo Artist 2007.

After her first album, she put out another four, collaborated with other artists, received many music award nominations, toured shows and was invited to perform at the Montreal Jazz Festival to a crowd of about 60,000.

Dover said with Smith on board, this year’s festival had ‘‘the strongest line-up in years’’.

Smith will be supported by world/electronica band Weird Together, Kiwi indie-folk musician Mel Parsons, Wellington alt country band The Miltones, electroacoustic folk-funk act Sonic Delusion, Canadian blues/roots resonator guitarist Joel Fafard and local hi-energy rockers The Immigrants.

Last year a record of 4000 people enjoyed the festival, even though it rained for parts of the day.

Dover said all the beers available at MarchFest had been specially commissioned for the event and had never previously been tasted by the public.

Eleven Top of the South Island craft breweries have signed up to produce a new beer for MarchFest this year.

There will be a record number of 22 new beers at this year’s event.

Dover said for the first time this year breweries from outside the region would be invited to brew a new beer specifically for the event.

This year the festival had chosen Top of the North as a ‘‘guest region’’, with new beers coming from Epic, McCleod’s, Urbanbaut, Outlier Cartel, Deep Creek and 8Wired.

‘‘If the idea goes well, we’ll choose a different guest region each year,’’ he said.

MarchFest will run at the end of Nelson Beer Week, which is on from March 17 to 25.

The New Zealand HomeBrewers’ Conference also takes place on the same weekend.

There will be brewing demonstrations, a food and beer matching lunch, children’s entertainment, food, ciders, wines and more.