Australian Music Festivals Recognised For Tourism Dollars

There is a lot of bawling these days about what makes a music festival relevant. Houses of cards or houses of the holy?

But one thing that is consistent is that they are still important in terms of tourism dollars.

The just-released nominations for the 2024 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards on March 21 has seven major music (or arts) festivals listed.

At the same time, a number of initiatives announced last week showed how governments put an importance on festivals for that reason.

The spotlight on these at the tourism awards is important. 

They show how the appeal of a festival is wider and deeper than thought. How the successful ones provide more to an experience-hungry crowd than just the event itself. It’s increasingly obvious that where a festival is staged plays a more significant role in its success.

Here we look at why these seven were underlined in the awards’ nominations list.

Bluesfest

Bluesfest Byron Bay is nominated yet again for its 2024 instalment. The crowd size may have dropped to about 70,000 from its usual 100,000. But it continued to draw enough out-of-towners to pump $230 million into the NSW economy.

According to tourism reports, many come before or after the amps turn on to connect with local surf beaches and water activities and local farmer, brewery and health food produces.

Bluesfest had seven wins at the Australian Event Awards, nine at the North Coast Tourism Awards, two at the Australian Tourism Awards, five at the live sector’s Helpmann Awards and eight at the NSW Tourism Awards, which also inducted Bluesfest into its hall of fame.

Adelaide Festival

Adelaide Festival 2024 got its nomination for its sales of 66,330 tickets and total of 555,505 – of which 29 per cent of who came from the rest of Australia and from abroad.

Of these, 14 per cent from NSW, 10 per cent from Victoria and 5 per cent from the other states and territories. 

They spent $39.6 million. This was on South Australia’s food and drink experience, nature and wildlife. During March 2024, 8,687 hotel rooms were occupied each night across metropolitan Adelaide. It was a record, beating 8,465 rooms on average in October 2019.

Darwin Festival

Fellow nominee Darwin Festival drew over 160,000 attendees and injected $20 million worth of new money into the economy.

Big Red Bash

The remoteness and unique landscape of the Birdsville Big Red Bash continued to draw 14,000 outback thrill seekers who made the long trek to the Simpson Desert. 

They not only grooved out to a wide range of acts and spectacular sunrises and sunsets, but threw themselves into wearing wacky costumes, and crazy competitions like creating the shape of Australia – a world record at the festival in 2023 with 5,467 entrants.

When Big Red Bash took a hiatus this year, local businesses were devastated at the loss of between $15 million to $20 million, and local council was pressurised to find new tourism initiatives through the year to make up the loss.

Mundi Mundi Bash

Its sister station the Mundi Mundi Bash in Broken Hill, going ahead in August, is also a tourism success for the way local businesses focus on providing for the thirst of spectacular landscapes and “different” experiences (including one of the Mad Max franchises filmed nearby), and local council spending more to create them.

Launched in 2021, ticket sales increased from 12,000 in 2023 to 14,000 in 2024, with an economic impact of $10 million. In 2025, attendees no longer have to travel on 2.5 km of a dirt road to get there, with the NSW Government spending $1.8 million to seal it.

Local parks and racecourses cater for 8,000 campers and 3,500 caravan owners en route to the festival. A racecourse spent $182,000 to upgrade its facilities to open up to out-of-towners wanting to encounter the genuine outback. 

Junction Arts Festival

In 2024, Northern Tasmania received $250,000 to improve and upgrade its cultural and festival infrastructure to attract more events. Already bringing tourists are festivals as Junction Arts Festival (nominated for the tourism awards) and Party In The Paddock.

Again the marketing revolves around community camaraderie, diverse music, arts installations and interactive story telling, and the timing of the festival (“As winter retreats and spring emerges, Junction celebrates the dance between light and dark”).

Port Fairy Folk Festival

The marketing around Port Fairy Folk Festival in Victoria – 10,000 patrons and an economic impact of $5 million – also works around the picturesque area’s legacy, the music’s story telling, political theatre and the town’s roving performances, handmade crafts, community market, exhibitions and interactive workshops.

In 2022, when it won Best Regional Festival at the Music Victoria Awards, Mayor Karen Foster observed, “The Folkie is more than an iconic music event, it is a part of the region’s heritage and an important contributor to our local economy - bringing visitors to the region who stay with our accommodation providers, eat at our restaurants and cafes and visit our tourist attractions.

“We know events like the Folkie have huge benefits and we are so proud to support the array of festivals and events in the region, who in turn support our local businesses.”

Long Distance

Up to 26 per cent of Australians travel long distances for a festival or concert. More of the younger ones will travel more and do more of it in the next few years, according to The 2025 Changing Traveller Report by hotel revenue platform SiteMinder.

The message is not lost on governments, which are fostering an even greater relationship between tourism marketing and festivals.

Last week, as reported in The Music, the NSW Government announced it is investing resources and money into 14 festivals to give them more certainty. Some of these like Bluesfest, Deni Muster, Mundi Mundi, Elvis Parkes and Tamworth Country Music have proved to be tourist drawcards, and set to grow even more.

Also last week, the Northern Territory Government mooted the idea of merging the Northern Territory Major Events Company (NTMEC) and Tourism NT “to establish a more targeted and strategic approach to attract visitors to the Territory.

NT Minister for Tourism and Hospitality Marie-Clare Boothby explained, “It’s time for a more coordinated, smarter and more effective strategy that builds tourism around strategically marketing our iconic events and delivers real outcomes for our economy."

NTMEC’s two major music festivals include BASSINTHEGRASS in Darwin and Parrtjima – A Festival in Light in Alice Springs.

Last year BASSINTHEGRASS drew 16,000 – half from outside the Territory – and generated $14.5 million. This year it’s held on May 17 with 18 acts including Hilltop Hoods and The Amity Affliction, and the introduction of a family-friendly BASS camp.

Parrtjima (April 4 to 13) reaches over 20,000. Of this, about 7,000 are from intestate, and 70 per cent confirm they travel to Alice Springs just for the event.

The fruitful relationship between WOMADelaide and the South Australian Government is extended to 2029. 

Figures for 2025 are not released yet (it staged March 7 – 10) but in 2024, WOMADelaide brought in 98,000 to Botanic Park/Tainmuntilla over its four days, and injected $21.5 million in new income for the state. 

Roughly about a quarter of the audience came from outside SA, 93 per cent came to the state just for the festival, and 73 per cent stayed on in the state afterwards, spending $2,729 each.

WOMADelaide director Ian Scobie has attributed its continued success to Adelaide being a “small city where people can move around to events quickly” and “embrace the culture of the festival” as well as the loyalty of a crowd who bring their children after they themselves were taken to the event themselves any time since 1992.

But one important statistic is the rising number of first-time attendees. This year, those who came primarily for PJ Harvey, Nitin Sawhney, Nils Frahm, Khruangbin, Ngaiire or John Grant.

But they may have been hooked by “the utter calm within the festival which was quite different from the vibe of arenas” or new-experienced any of the 700 artists from 35 countries.

Scobie told ABC News that the acts might have been diverse. But “they are artists who are basically making a statement about what it is to be human, to be alive, what their thoughts might be, and it's an absolute fucking thrill."