Gore’s DIY music festival
The Burning Horse Festival takes the summer music festival back to its roots with a light salting of New Zealand DIY and farm antics.
The summer music festival scene has become big business with crowds of people paying hundreds of dollars to see international acts, but Zeb Horrell plans to bring a worthy festival experience to Southland.
All from the mates and supplies he can conjure up with.
The Burning Horse Festival, held in the back country of Gore, expects a turnout of around 600 to a thousand people, with three days of music on two stages, all organised through the people that Horrell stumbled upon.
‘‘We have no experience running a festival, just me and the worker on the farm really driving the event,’’ Horrell said. ‘‘When we got the project under way, we got offers for help from a range of people, backpackers, mates and people from the community.’’
The festival will have two stages, one playing live bands with the other playing continous electronic music for three days.
All the acts also have the DIY mantra, where artists approached Horrell instead of him approaching them.
‘‘Mostly its been people messaging me to play, sending in mixes and reaching out to play, the DJ community down south are pretty tight like that.
‘‘All but three acts are local coming from places such as Wanaka, Queenstown, Dunedin and Invercargill.’’
All the structures were built with timber from the farm, mostly wind blown trees including the stages and the two wooden horses they are going to burn, where the festival gets its name from.
‘‘We’ve built it with a sourced from the farm ethos when you get down there at its noticeable that its all quite natural.’’
The Burning Horse Festival plans to provide entertainment for a demographic often disregarded in Southland.
‘‘It’s just about having a festival in Southland really, putting on something for the people of Southland.’’