Glamping at Bluesfest

“Hi guys. Can you help?”

The first portent of what ‘camping’ at this year’s 25th annual Byron Bay Bluesfest might be like, was not encouraging.

The rented ‘Wicked’ campervan beside us in the Burleigh Heads Caravan Park wouldn’t start and its hairy occupants explained they couldn’t access its healthy auxiliary battery because their ‘stash’ had replaced the necessary tools in the vehicle’s toolbox!

“See, I told you,” my wife retorted, the muddy mayhem of Woodstock, Glastonbury and other famous music festivals snapping into focus. But she was wrong. Completely wrong.

The 2014 Byron Bay Bluesfest was a breeze to access. The weather was cloudless, mid-20s and picture-perfect. The officials were polite and helpful. The roomy, albeit expensive RV site our borrowed Talvor 565A caravan sat on delightfully green.

Everyone aged from 17 to their late 70s was well behaved and the music, ranging from the contemporary cool of John Mayer and Jack Johnson, to the mesmerising vocals of soul, diva Joss Stone, to the soaring guitars of Jeff Beck and the soulful blues of the immortal Buddy Guy, was simply sensational.

Welcome to ‘glamping’ at Bluesfest.

I too was uncertain of the outcome when I put the required $486 on my plastic for a three-day camping site at the 2014, 25th Anniversary festival.

That was based on two people at $60 per day, per person ($180 x 2) for the opening Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the five-day Easter music festival, plus an additional $126 (for three days) for our 19ft 2in Talvor 565A caravan and its Nissan Patrol tow car.

Not cheap, when compared with already inflated Easter weekend caravan sites at $65 (for two people) at the major Gold Coast and Northcoast NSW caravan parks, but given we were just a 250 metres walk from the main Bluesfest gate and the two major music marquees were just 100 metres further on, it was case of po$ition, po$ition, po$ition.

Another benefit of being so close to the action was that you could retreat to your caravan for a bit of R&R in between gigs.

Bluesfest is set up with two major music marquees, Crossroads and Mojo, on which acts perform sets spaced 30 minutes apart  that last on average 60-90 minutes, from mid-afternoon until nearly midnight each day.

These marquees are so vast that the twin superscreens on each side of the stage are useful to the large crowds that pack them, those in front of the stage standing, while those who prefer to sit can occupy plastic chairs near the rear of the marquee, behind the central mixing suite.

You can also bring your own folding chairs, but if you do so you have to sit outside the marquee, to the side. There you have an excellent view of a superscreen, but not much of the actual stage on which the artists are performing. But the sound is still excellent there, with the organisers this year capping most bands to a totally-bearable 85-90dB.

This means you could prop almost dead in front of a speaker through a set without feeling assaulted by the sound, or have your ears ringing for days.
These two marquees are supplemented by the smaller (but still large) Jambalaya and Delta marquees, neither, of which has a superscreen.

And finally there are two ‘club-like’ marquees – the Cavanbah and Juke Joint – which are fabulous for getting up close and personal with less famous bands and singers.

We caught The Black Sorrows, Buddy Guy, Joss Stone, John Mayer and Boz Scaggs at the big ones, K.T.Tunstall at one of the medium marquees and saw the Backsliders with Rob Hurst (ex-Midnight Oil) on drums in the Juke Joint.

As we were there for just three of the five days, we were sited near an exit in Campground 7 of the seven huge camping sites. At first we thought this might be a problem, being adjacent to the entry gate and the bus transfer area, where day trippers (an unfortunate expression) or those preferring not to drive, could access the regular shuttle busses to and from Byron Bay, about 15 minute’ drive away (without traffic).

But again, our fears were baseless.

The music on the main stages was usually finished by 11.30pm and was unobtrusive in the background until then; no-one to our hearing, partied through the night and with the following day’s programme not commencing until 12 noon at the earliest, no-one was up banging drums too early.

In any case, alcohol was only available to be purchased inside the Festival itself and couldn’t be brought into the campground. The fridge, cupboards and even the oven of our Talvor was inspected on first entry, as was the rear of the Nissan, but once in we heard some inventive ways of getting around this.

Who would stash their stubbles in a top-loading washing machine anyway? Mum’s the word!

With our Talvor, like many of the luxury caravans, motorhomes and even several fifth wheelers that populated the main vehicle campgrounds, we were self-contained, with our own water (thanks to the 565A’s generous 147 litre fresh water tank that allowed us to enjoy our own hot showers, ablute and so on).

But if you were tent camping, as many people did – whether in their own two-man or the Festival organisers’ own more luxurious hard-floor tents, into which you checked into, like a motel – there were separate male and female facility blocks, with portable toilets and separate portable hot showers.

We also cooked some of our own meals, but with a wide choice of food from every corner of the planet on sale inside Bluesfest, it was tempting to grab a Cajun Gumbo, a Turkish Gozleme or something Asian and tasty and just kick back on seats in one of the many covered areas.

THE WRAP-UP

Bluesfest was one of the best-run outdoor events we have ever attended and I’m including other ‘temporary’ events like the Australian F1 Grand Prix at Melbourne’s Albert Park and the MotoGP and Phillip Island Classic Festival of Speed at Phillip Island.

But while you can camp at these Phillip Island events, you can’t set up your own home on wheels a few hundred metres from the action for the F1 Grand Prix at Albert Park.

True, the weather was on our side, but under similar conditions we would heartily recommend the caravan/camping experience at Bluesfest if you love the music, but not necessarily 24 hours a day.

It’s on again at Easter next year. Check out the

Bluesfest website.