Music festival the Big Day Out is returning to New Zealand next year and will take place in a new venue.
The multi-genre summer festival is moving from Mt Smart Stadium to Western Springs Stadium and the surrounding park. Despite keeping the same name, promoters insist the festival's return is "not a resurrection" but rather "new event for Auckland".
"It will have its connections to the event happening over the Tasman, but it won’t be the same and it will have its links to the past, yet it will be different," according to a media release.
Promoters say the line-up will feature some of the biggest international and local names in rock, pop, alternative, hip hop and dance music, but be created and curated specifically for Kiwis with a broader presentation of New Zealand art and culture.
"We strongly felt that there was real desire for the event to return to Auckland," says Auckland Big Day Out promoter Campbell Smith.
"And more than anything else that really whet the appetite. We became determined that if we could, we should bring it back. We have spent the summer working with the Australian Big Day Out team and American partners, C3, the promoters of other major festivals including Lollapolooza, on a plan to bring the BDO back to life in New Zealand."
Organisers announced that the 2012 Big Day Out would be New Zealand's last as the event struggled with sluggish sales and disgruntled fans after high-profile acts Kanye West and Odd Future were removed from the line-up.
The new festival's relocation puts it much closer to central Auckland, which will ease the transport issues that frustrated some attendees at previous events.
"Any world class city has a constellation of events to cater for the tastes of all of its residents - young and not so young," says Auckland mayor Len Brown.
"Returning a Big Day Out to our calendar in 2014 would fill a huge hole and the proposed relocation to Western Springs would bring this significant music and culture event right into the city for residents and the thousands of visitors it draws to Auckland."
This year is the second since the Big Day Out debuted in Auckland in 1994 that it has not taken place in New Zealand - the festival last took a break in 1998.
Watch David Farrier's full interview with Campbell Smith.
3 News
source: newshub archive
