A bucket-list of regional music festivals on the rise across Australia

From a big country music bash in a rodeo arena to a folk festival by the sea, regional music festivals are hitting all the right notes with crowds all over Australia.

In October last year a cavalcade of utes, vans and motorhomes carrying 8000 people descended upon Tropical North Queensland’s Mareeba Rodeo Arena. But the crowds wearing cowboy boots and Akubra hats didn’t travel from far and wide to see bucking broncos and bulls. Instead, they’ve come to kick up their heels at what has become the hottest ticket in town.

Savannah in the Round, Qld

Kip Moore performing at Savannah in the Round — Kip Moore at Savannah in the Round.

In its fifth year, Savannah in the Round saw 40 artists play for more than 90 hours on four stages. The three-day camping festival’s blend of rock and country music has proven to be a winning combination with rockers like Hoodoo Gurus and The Living End gracing the stages alongside a strong line-up of country musicians.

Last year, Nashville-based stars Kip Moore and Tyler Hubbard joined Australian country music legends like Troy Cassar-Daley and Lee Kernaghan on the bill, along with Queensland-based country duo Jock Barnes and Trent McArdle, of Route 33, who have played at the festival three times.

the Savannah in the Round from above at sunset — Savannah in the Round is the hottest ticket in Tropical North Queensland.

“Having the mix of country and rock artists, the festival attracts a wide array of people. Every year with the outside stages and camping growing, it’s getting more of a camping festival feel which seems to create a larger party atmosphere as the event gets bigger," says McArdle.

As a fan of New Zealand singer Jon Stevens from way back, McArdle had a ‘pinch-me’ moment playing on stage right after the rock icon, who is best known for fronting Noiseworks.

the crowd at Savannah in the Round Festival — The country and rock festival is in its fifth year.

“Aussie pub rock has had a revival in the past five years and country music is on the doorstep of being the biggest genre in the world. Bringing these two [genres] together on the line-up really sets the festival apart from other Aussie festivals and almost guarantees its success," McArdle says.

Sound Australia CEO James Dein explains he founded Savannah in the Round “to create a space where country music lovers from all walks of life can come together, share stories and celebrate the heart and soul of the outback".

As Australia’s largest avocado-growing region and a significant producer of tropical fruits such as mangoes and pineapples, Mareeba’s economy is underpinned by agriculture, with mining and renewable energy also significant.

But tourism is increasingly growing in the region, with visitor numbers climbing steadily thanks to events such as Savannah in the Round.

the palm-tree-laden Tropical North Queensland — Head to Tropical North Queensland for the epic Savannah in the Round.

“We chose Mareeba as the home of Savannah in the Round because it’s the beating heart of Tropical North Queensland, a place where the rugged beauty of the outback meets the warmth of a close-knit community with a deep connection to country culture," Dein explains.

Home to a population of around 23,000 people, Mareeba is also conveniently located for those interested in snorkelling, diving, cruising the reef, or exploring the world’s oldest (and Australia’s largest) tropical rainforest.

an aerial view of a rainforest and beach at Tropical North Queensland — Tropical North Queensland is where the rainforest meets the reef.

“It’s a stone’s throw from the spoils of the Cairns region like the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest, making it the perfect backdrop for a festival that celebrates the spirit of the tropical north," says Dein.

The popularity of Savannah in the Round bucks the trend of festival cancellations, which has seen the likes of Groovin the Moo and Splendour in the Grass flounder due to lacklustre ticket sales and rising insurance costs.

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Australian Festival of Chamber Music

the Andromeda Sax Quartet — Andromeda Sax Quartet will perform at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. (Image: Andrew Rankin)

Despite the challenges of putting on a large-scale event in a regional location, other festivals are also going from strength to strength up north. Held in Townsville, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music  enjoyed a record-breaking year in 2024 – albeit with a lot less dust and rowdiness than Savannah in the Round.

The annual celebration of classical music draws world-class performers from around Australia and the globe. Devoted classical music connoisseurs who return year after year (dubbed the ‘Balmy Army’) are integral to the festival’s ongoing success. But the festival also attracts newcomers each year thanks to its diverse program and free, family-friendly outdoor concerts.

an aerial view of Townsville — Townsville is the setting for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. (Image: Megan MacKinnon)

Held in various indoor and outdoor venues including the Townsville Civic Theatre, Magnetic Island and St James’ Cathedral, the 2024 festival saw attendance rise to 22,106 across all events (up 31 per cent on 2023), with interstate or overseas visitors growing by 16 per cent.

This resulted in $19.9 million of spending in Queensland by attendees, representing an increase of 114 per cent on the previous year.

Port Fairy Folk Festival, Vic

the 2023 Port Fairy FolkFestival — The much-loved Port Fairy Folk Festival.

Starting way back in 1977 when 400 people paid the princely sum of $4 a ticket, the Port Fairy Folk Festival (‘the Folkie’) has had a hell of a run.

What started as a humble celebration of folk music with a truck acting as a makeshift stage is now a tourism juggernaut. Still going strong more than four decades later, the much-loved festival fuelled by community spirit sees the population of the Victorian seaside town of Port Fairy swell from 3000 to more than 30,000 every March.

a musician playing his instruments at the 2023 Port Fairy FolkFestival — The Folkie has been running since 1977.

Over the years, the festival held just beyond the end of the Great Ocean Road has welcomed a wider range of genres to the scene, attracting local performers as well as international drawcards like Cat Power, Glen Hansard, Loudon Wainwright III and the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Tasmanian musician Van Walker has performed at the Folkie about a dozen times over his long and storied career, both solo and with acts such as The Livingstone Daisies and Vandemonian Lags.

Now based in Victoria, the folk, blues, country and rock and roll singer shares what he believes is the special secret sauce that this free-spirited collective jam session by the sea possesses: “It was one of the first big festivals I ever played. Though it has international acts, it is distinctly Australian and distinctly Victorian, with its sunshine and ever-present sea breezes. There is a real camaraderie among the musicians, who are always on hand to help with equipment and play together," says Walker.

visitors sitting under The Folkie signage, Port Fairy Folk Festival — Port Fairy Folk Festival, aka ‘the Folkie. (Image: Jason Dobrowolski)

Like other performers who make the pilgrimage year after year, the Folkie occupies a special place in Walker’s heart.

“The Folkie’s prime location may have a lot to do with its continued appeal, plus the passion and perseverance of the people involved. It’s an enormous production involving the entire community and that labour of love permeates the entire festival," he explains.

With many attendees booking their accommodation 12 months in advance, the region’s hotels, motels, pub stays, holiday homes and caravan parks are solidly booked out each year of the festival, representing a strong economic uplift for the local economy.

the crowds at the Port Fairy Folk Festival — The small Victorian town welcomes some 30,000 visitors for the Folkie. (Image: Small General Photography)

Mayor of Moyne Shire Council Karen Foster shares that Port Fairy’s two council-run caravan parks welcome a whopping 3800 guests alone during the festival.

“It’s a huge economic boost for our entire shire. The funds from the caravan parks are dispersed through council’s coffers throughout the shire for the rest of the year," says Councillor Foster.

Around 89 per cent of ticket holders come from across Victoria, while 11 per cent travel from interstate to experience the convivial vibe of this gathering that celebrates creativity and togetherness via live performances, workshops, talks and even group singalongs.

the Port Fairy Beach — Usually sleepy Port Fairy. (Image: Rob Blackburn)

The festival also acts as an introduction to the region, with many people returning during the quieter months to experience Port Fairy’s historic charm, sans the crowds. “We know the Folkie has flow-on benefits. It’s a great showcase for the region and it attracts people back here at other times," says Councillor Foster.

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Why regional festivals are on the rise

woman in crowd at BASSINTHEGRASS — Darwin’s BASSINTHEGRASS. (Image: Helen Orr)

A common theme uniting these successful festivals is a strong sense of small-town pride. A deep love for regional Queensland is evident at Savannah in the Round, which champions local food producers, distilleries and breweries. Volunteers from the Kuranda Visitor Information Centre and Mareeba Heritage Museum and Visitor Information Centre are on hand each day to share the best things to do in the region after the event.

surfers at Port Fairy Beach — Surfers at Port Fairy Beach. (Image: Belinda Vanzanen)

More than 800 volunteers help ensure Victoria’s Port Fairy Folk Festival is a success by pitching in to help with construction, ticketing, merchandise and stage management. In turn, the festival has invested more than $9.5 million in the community over the years, with the local hospital, surf lifesaving club, sporting clubs and many arts and community programs receiving funding.

“The Folkie is an absolute institution that’s not only economically important, but socially as well," Councillor Foster shares, adding: “Community faith in the Folkie and community love for the Folkie is what holds it together."

While some big-name music festivals have folded in recent years, Savannah in the Round, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and Port Fairy Folk Festival have proven that regional music festivals with a strong sense of community are really striking a chord.

Annual regional music festivals to have on your radar

the Mundi Mundi Bash, Broken Hill, NSW — Mundi Mundi Bash attracts thousands of festivalgoers who claimed a world record title for the largest Nutbush City Limits dance in 2023. (Image: Matt Williams)

the crowd at Tamworth Country Music Festival — Don’t miss out on Australia’s biggest country music festival. (Image: Tamworth Country Music Festival)

Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.

Just 15 years ago, Federal Mills was a very different place. Once among the most significant industrial sites in Victoria, the historic woollen mill was one of a dozen that operated in Geelong at the industry’s peak in the mid-20th century, helping the city earn its title as ‘wool centre of the world’. But by the 1960s global competition and the rise of synthetic fabrics led to the slow decline of the industry, and Federal Mills finally shuttered its doors in 2001. Within a few years, the abandoned North Geelong grounds had become makeshift pastoral land, with cows and goats grazing among the overgrown grass between the empty red-brick warehouses. It was a forgotten pocket of the city, all but two klicks from the bustle of the CBD.

Geelong cellar door wine bar — Geelong has shed its industrial identity to become an innovative urban hub with reimagined heritage spaces. (Image: Ash Hughes)

Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct

Today, the century-old complex stands reborn. The distinctive sawtooth-roof buildings have been sensitively restored. An old silo is splashed with a bright floral mural, landscapers have transformed the grounds, and the precinct is once again alive with activity. More than 1000 people work across 50-plus businesses here. It’s so busy, in fact, that on a sunny Thursday morning in the thick of winter, it’s hard to find a car park. The high ceilings, open-plan design, and large multi-paned windows – revolutionary features for factories of their time – have again become a drawcard.

Paddock Bakery andPatisserie — Paddock Bakery and Patisserie is housed within the historic wool factory. (Image: Gallant Lee)

At Paddock , one of the precinct’s newer tenants, weaving looms and dye vats have been replaced by a wood-fired brick oven and heavy-duty mixers. Open since April 2024, the bakery looks right at home here; the building’s industrial shell is softened by ivy climbing its steel frames, and sunlight streams through the tall windows. Outside, among the white cedar trees, families at picnic benches linger over dippy eggs and bagels, while white-collar workers pass in and out, single-origin coffee and crème brûlée doughnuts in hand.

Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design

Paddock Bakery can be found at Federal Mills. (Image: Gallant Lee)

“A lot of people are now seeing the merit of investing in Geelong,” says Paul Traynor, the head of Hamilton Hospitality Group, which redeveloped Federal Mills. A city once shunned as Sleepy Hollow, and spurned for its industrial, working-class roots and ‘rust belt’ image, Geelong has long since reclaimed its ‘Pivot City’ title, having reinvented itself as an affordable, lifestyle-driven satellite city, and a post-COVID migration hotspot.

And the numbers stand testament to the change. In March 2025, and for the first time in its history, Greater Geelong became Australia’s most popular regional town for internal migration, overtaking Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Current forecasts suggest Geelong will continue to outpace many other Australian cities and towns, with jobs growing at double the rate of the population.

Tourism is booming, too. The 2023-24 financial year was Geelong and The Bellarine region’s busiest on record, with 6.4 million visitors making it one of the fastest-growing destinations in the country. It’s not hard to see why: beyond the city’s prime positioning at the doorstep of the Great Ocean Road, Geelong’s tenacity and cultural ambition stands out.

As Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design, Geelong is swiftly shaking off its industrial past to become a model for urban renewal, innovation, sustainability and creative communities. The signs are everywhere, from the revitalisation of the city’s waterfront, and the landmark design of the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre and Geelong Arts Centre, to the growing network of local designers, architects and artists, and the burgeoning roster of festivals and events. That’s not even mentioning the adaptive reuse of storied old industrial buildings – from Federal Mills, to Little Creatures’ brewery ‘village’ housed within a 1920s textile mill – or the city’s flourishing food and wine scene.

The rise of a food and wine destination

Restaurant 1915 is housed within a restored former boiler house. (Image: Harry Pope/Two Palms)

Traynor credits now-closed local restaurant Igni, which opened in 2016, as the turning point for Geelong’s hospo industry. “[Aaron Turner, Igni’s chef-patron] was probably the first guy, with all due respect, to raise the bar food-wise for Geelong,” he says. “People now treat it really seriously, and there’s clearly a market for it.” While Igni is gone, Turner now helms a string of other notable Geelong venues, including The Hot Chicken Project and Tacos y Liquor, all within the buzzy, street art-speckled laneways of the CBD’s Little Malop Street Precinct. Many others have also popped up in Igni’s wake, including Federal Mills’ own restaurant, 1915 . Housed within the cavernous boiler house, 1915’s interior is dramatic: soaring, vaulted ceilings with timber beams, exposed brick, a huge arched window. The share plates echo the space’s bold character, playing with contrast and texture, with dishes such as a compressed watermelon tataki, the sweet, juicy squares tempered by salty strands of fried leeks, and charred, smoky snow peas dusted with saganaki on a nutty bed of romesco.

The Woolstore , one of The Hamilton Group’s most recent hospo projects, opened in February. It occupies a century-old riverside warehouse and exudes a more sultry, fine dining ambience. Much like Federal Mills, the blueprint was to preserve the original brickwork, tallowwood flooring and nods to the building’s former life. That same careful consideration extends to the well-versed, affable waitstaff as well as the kitchen. Head chef Eli Grubb is turning out an eclectic mix of ambitious and indulgent mod Oz dishes that deliver: strikingly tender skewers of chicken tsukune, infused with hints of smoke from the parrilla grill, and glazed with a moreish, sweet gochujang ‘jam’; nduja arancini fragrant with hints of aniseed and the earthy lick of sunny saffron aioli; and golden squares of potato pavé, adorned with tiny turrets of crème fraîche, crisp-fried saltbush leaves, and Avruga caviar, to name but a few stand-out dishes.

Woolstore menu — Woolstore’s menu is designed for sharing.

Breathing new life into historic spaces

On the city’s fringe, hidden down a winding side road with little fanfare, lies a long-dormant site that’s being gently revived. Built from locally quarried bluestone and brick, and dating back to the 1870s, the complex of original tin-roofed mill buildings is lush with greenery and backs onto the Barwon River and Buckley Falls; the audible rush of water provides a soothing soundtrack. Fyansford Paper Mill is one of few complexes of its time to survive intact. It feels steeped in history and spellbindingly rustic.

“We were looking for an old industrial place that had some charm and romance to it,” explains Sam Vogel, the owner, director and winemaker at Provenance Wines which moved here in 2018. When he first viewed the building with his former co-owner, it was in such a state of disrepair that the tradie tenant occupying the space had built a shed within it to escape the leaking roof and freezing winter temperatures. “To say it was run down would be an understatement,” he notes. “There was ivy growing through the place; the windows were all smashed. It was a classic Grand Designs project.”

Provenance Wines moved to Fyansford Paper Mill in 2018. (Image: Cameron Murray Photography)

The team has since invested more than a million dollars into their new home. Where paper processing machinery once sat, wine barrels are now stacked. Vaulted cathedral ceilings are strung with festoon lights, and hidden in plain sight lies a shadowy mural by local street artist de rigueur Rone – one of only three permanent works by the artist.

While the award-winning, cool-climate pinot noir, riesling and chardonnay naturally remain a key draw at Provenance, the winery’s restaurant is a destination in itself. Impressed already by whipsmart service, I devour one of the most cleverly curated and faultlessly executed degustations I’ve had in some time. It’s all prepared in a kitchen that is proudly zero-waste, and committed to providing seasonal, ethical and locally sourced meat and produce under head chef Nate McIver. Think free-range venison served rare with a syrupy red wine jus and a half-moon of neon-orange kosho, shokupan with a deeply savoury duck fat jus (a modern Japanese take on bread and drippings), and a golden potato cake adorned with a colourful confetti of dehydrated nasturtiums and tomato powder, and planted atop a sea urchin emulsion.

handcrafted pieces — Bell’s handcrafted functional pieces on display.

The complex is home to a coterie of independent businesses, including a gallery, a jeweller, and its latest tenant, ceramicist Elizabeth Bell, drawn here by the building’s “soul”. “There’s so much potential for these buildings to have new life breathed into them,” says Bell, whose studio is housed within the old pump room. “Even people in Geelong don’t know we’re here,” she says. “It’s definitely a destination, but I like that. It has a really calming atmosphere.”

A Melbourne transplant, Bell now feels at home in Geelong, which offers something Melbourne didn’t. “If this business was in Melbourne I don’t think it would’ve been as successful,” she notes. “It’s very collaborative in Geelong, and I don’t think you get that as much in Melbourne; you’re a bit more in it for yourself. Here it’s about community over competition.”

A bucket-list of regional music festivals on the rise across Australia

From a big country music bash in a rodeo arena to a folk festival by the sea, regional music festivals are hitting all the right notes with crowds all over Australia.

Savannah in the Round, Qld

Australian Festival of Chamber Music

Port Fairy Folk Festival, Vic

Why regional festivals are on the rise

Annual regional music festivals to have on your radar

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Inside Geelong’s glow-up from factory town to creative capital

Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.

Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct

Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design

The rise of a food and wine destination

Breathing new life into historic spaces

From a big country music bash in a rodeo arena to a folk festival by the sea, regional music festivals are hitting all the right notes with crowds all over Australia.

Savannah in the Round, Qld

AI Prompt

Australian Festival of Chamber Music

Port Fairy Folk Festival, Vic

Why regional festivals are on the rise

Annual regional music festivals to have on your radar

Qantas slashes flights and raises fares as fuel crisis bites

The world’s oldest meteor shower is back – here’s how to see it in Australia

A rare natural phenomenon is about to light up Australia’s forests

This app can predict flight delays up to 25 hours in advance

Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.

Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct

Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design

The rise of a food and wine destination

Breathing new life into historic spaces

Australian Festival of Chamber Music