Byron Bay Bluesfest director Peter Noble reportedly gave a speech at the festival yesterday (April 8), addressing lower attendance at this year’s event and the independence of the festival.
- READ MORE: Five Things I Know: Peter Noble, Bluesfest
As reported by The Music Network, Noble’s speech to an invite-only room of guests cited economic factors for this year’s downtick in attendance – “it’s not bad and it’s not great,” he said of the turnout. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, some 70,000 punters attended the festival over the weekend as compared to about 100,000 in 2022.
Noble pointed to the rising cost of living as one of the reasons why people may not have been inclined to buy tickets for Bluesfest 2023. “We can’t fight changes in society,” he said. “And the changes in society have come with multiple interest rate rises every month except for this week… People’s lives are being impacted. They haven’t got enough money to go out. Netflix becomes more interesting because they stay home for it. Inflation is rising.”
Noble also declared that he has no plans to sell Bluesfest to another company, in the process making a jab at other Byron festivals like Splendour In The Grass (Live Nation bought a 51 per cent stake in Splendour in 2016). “My festival is not owned by an overseas multinational. I own my festival,” he reportedly said. “I am Australian… Nobody else owns 51 [per cent] of my event like those up the road here and many others … Know that there are Australian people who are proud of what they’ve created and won’t sell out to overseas interests.”
Noble claimed that some multinational companies have “approached [him] a couple of times” to discuss acquiring Bluesfest, and although he doesn’t “dislike them or anything”, he’s turned them down because “it’s just not what I want to do”.
He explained: “I want to pass my event onto my family. I’m part of Byron. I’ve been part of Byron for over 30 years, and I’m not going to go ‘I’m part of Byron’ and some other guy owns me and all I end up with at the end of it all is a backstage pass to the event I created. Stick it, Live Nation.”
Part of Noble’s hesitancy to embrace overseas multinationals, he reportedly said, is owed to the influence they have over the shape of the Australian music industry, particularly at the hand of employees who he says care more about finances than artistic development. “Nowadays when I go backstage at events that are run by multinationals,” he is quoted as saying, “I see a different group of people there.
“They’re ambitious. They’re in the music industry to create a life where people become wealth… We’re corporatising. We really are. People are buying artists for millions of dollars and all they do is play for them. And guys like me don’t get to buy the artists as easily as we used to, even if they want to play here… If we’re not careful, we become like the corner store and Walmarts takes over.”
Noble reportedly spotted some members of his crowd “wincing” over his statements, addressing them directly in saying, “I’m sorry, but we need to protect our industry and it starts with making sure the Australian industry is Australian-owned… We’re an institution and we’re not going anywhere.”
It’s reported that Noble did not discuss the controversy over Sticky Fingers’ booking at Bluesfest 2023, whom he’d defended in the months leading up to the festival. The booking of the divisive band led to some acts dropping out from their Bluesfest appearances (first King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, then Sampa The Great) before Sticky Fingers themselves walked from the line-up.
This year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest began on Thursday (April 6) and ends tomorrow (April 10), running concurrently with the festival’s debut editions in Melbourne and Perth.