Bluesfest Byron Bay

The Byron Bay Bluesfest, formerly the East Coast International Blues & Roots Music Festival, is an annual music festival that has been held over the Easter long weekend in the Byron Bay area in Australia since 1990. It features a large selection of blues and roots performers, from Australia and around the world, and is one of the world's leading contemporary music festivals.It was founded by Keven Oxford in 1990 and is now run by Peter Noble who joined Oxford for the 1994 event. It has been held at several locations in and around Byron Bay, and is currently held at Tyagarah, 11 kilometres drive north of Byron Bay town. Originally running for three days, it now runs for five days, from Thursday to Monday. From an original crowd of 6,000, it now attracts annual audiences of over 101,000 across the five days. Patrons range from locals to international visitors, from a wide age range.HistoryThe festival was staged for the first time in 1990 at the Arts Factory Lodge in Byron Bay as a five-day blues music event over the Easter weekend. In December 2004, Keven Oxford, a director and founder of the event, left the festival and sold his 50% share of the company to a consortium comprising Michael Chugg (managing director of Sydney-based Michael Chugg Entertainment), Daryl Herbert (CEO of Melbourne-based Definitive Events) and Glenn Wheatley (CEO of Melbourne-based Talentworks), who ran the festival with co-founder Peter Noble. Noble bought out the consortium in 2008 and now owns the festival alone. In 2010 Bluesfest moved to its permanent home at the 120-hectare Tyagarah Tea Tree farm.