Big Day Out

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Big Day Out In Australia Goes Eco, by Greg Tingle - 1st January 2010

The world famous Big Day Out music festival has gone green, planting more than 15,000 eucalyptus would you believe, as carbon offsets way out in central New South Wales its concerts of 2007 and 2008, and yet another 5876 (if you believe the gossip being chatted about) trees will be planted to offset last year's one.

Concert-goers are being encouraged to purchase a ''green ticket'' for next month's events at a modest $1.34 per head, which the organizes promise will be used to plant more mallee eucalyptus. Mallee what? It has a nice ring to it anyway, and why would they be anything but honest.

''By calculating the Australian greenhouse emissions for a year and dividing by the population and then by the days in a year, we can determine the per capita emissions for a person for a day,'' the Big Day Out official website states.

Previous years' energy audits led to plantings at Narromine and Fifield in central NSW.

Goolgowi is the next on the hit list.

The Big Day Out will be held in Sydney on January 26 and 27. Yep, 2 shows again in Sydney this year, such us the demand.

We hope to see you there! Oh, well done to the organizers again this year. A massive project management gig if they ever was, and things appear right on track. Credit to the devils where its due. Cheers maties.

News Update (Credit: Big Day Out)

BRING A FRIEND FOR FREE: YIPPEE!!!
24 DECEMBER, 2010
THURSDAY JANUARY 27TH SYDNEY BIG DAY OUT ONLY

That’s right, all ticket holders for the Sydney Thursday January 27th BDO 2011 event will be allowed to bring a friend for free, no tricks, no gimmicks.

Very rarely does an opportunity of this scale become possible for a festival to thank its supporters.

The high demand for the Jan 26th Australia Day show combined with the overwhelming number of international tours and events this summer has necessitated a choice to be made for the good of the event.

Because our audience is such a valued part of the show, we felt you deserved a reward for 18 years of support.

So, if you couldn’t get the day off work, or couldn’t afford a ticket this year, or missed out in Gold Coast or Melbourne, we are offering to everyone who’s bought a ticket or buys a ticket to the Sydney Thursday January 27th BDO 2011 the right to bring a friend.

There will not be a ballot, these are the final ticket sales. A 4 ticket limit is in place.

For those with tickets to the first show on Australia Day, please accept this as a plus, not a minus: You & a friend have a chance to catch the acts you missed the 1st day. For half price!

There are no forms to fill in, all that is required is that you have your guest with you at the ticket trip point on the day. All the same conditions of sale and admission apply to you and your guest, so please check your ticket or our website for details.

MERRY XMAS FROM THE BIG DAY OUT!!!!
NB: This offer does not include Guest tickets.

To help with general queries, here are some basic Q & As:

Q: Do I need to have the person with me?
A: Yes, they will need to be with you at the ticket trip point at entry.

Q: Can I meet them later to let them in?
A: Not if you are already in, once your ticket is scanned the offer is void.

Q: Can I swap my Australia Day ticket for the Jan 27 show?
A: No.

Q: Will there be tickets on the day?
A: Not if it sells out in advance.

Q: Is there a meeting point outside the entry?
A: Best chose a location away from the main entry to meet up.

Q: Are there any pass outs?
A: No

BIG DAY OUT 2011:

FRIDAY, 21 JANUARY - AUCKLAND MT SMART STADIUM

Tickets available from Real Groovy, all Ticketmaster Outlets, phone and credit card bookings 0800 111 999 or www.ticketmaster.co.nz and from our website www.bigdayout.com

SUNDAY, 23 JANUARY - GOLD COAST PARKLANDS – SOLD OUT!!!!!

WEDNESDAY, 26 JANUARY - SYDNEY SHOWGROUND –EXTRA TICKETS ANNOUNCED!!!

Tickets only available from www.ticketmaster.com

THURSDAY, 27 JANUARY - SYDNEY SHOWGROUND

Tickets only available from www.ticketmaster.com.au and from www.bigdayout.com

SUNDAY, 30 JANUARY - MELBOURNE FLEMINGTON RACECOURSE – SOLD OUT!!!!!

FRIDAY, 4 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE SHOWGROUND

Tickets available from Krypton Discs (Glenelg), Mr V Music (City, Semaphore), Elevator Music (Seaford), Live Clothing (Rundle Mall, Marion), www.ticketmaster.com.au and www.bigdayout.com

SUNDAY, 6 FEBRUARY - PERTH CLAREMONT SHOWGROUND

Tickets available from 78 Records (Perth), Mills Records (Fremantle), Planet Video (Mt Lawley), Live Clothing (all stores), Joynt Venture (Perth), Bassendean Newsagency (Bassendean), Cellarbrations (Garratt & Guildford), Trax (Mandurah), Collins Music (Bunbury), Blue 62 (Busselton), Geraldton CD Centre (Geraldton), Goldfields Arts Centre (Kalgoorlie), Vibes (Albany), www.ticketmaster.com.au and www.bigdayout.com

TOURING ARTISTS announced for 2011 Big Day Out are:

TOOL, RAMMSTEIN, IGGY AND THE STOOGES, M.I.A, JOHN BUTLER TRIO, GRINDERMAN, WOLFMOTHER, LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, BLOODY BEETROOTS DEATH CREW 77, CRYSTAL CASTLES, LUPE FIASCO, PRIMAL SCREAM SCREAMADELICA LIVE, THE BLACK KEYS, DEFTONES, BLISS N ESO, ANGUS & JULIA STONE, PLAN B, PNAU, DIE ANTWOORD, EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS, BOOKA SHADE DJ SET, ANDREW W.K., THE JIM JONES REVUE, BIRDS OF TOKYO, LITTLE RED, GYROSCOPE, VITALIC, CSS, RATATAT, AIRBOURNE, DEAD LETTER CIRCUS, BLUE KING BROWN, THE NAKED & FAMOUS, OPERATOR PLEASE, CHILDREN COLLIDE, GYPSY AND THE CAT, WILL STYLES, LOWRIDER, SAMPOLOGY, KIDS OF 88, KID KENOBI & MC SHURESHOCK, SIA, THE VINES, THE GREENHORNES, WASHINGTON, MATT & KIM AND SILENT DISCO.

For all things BDO including details on side shows, please visit BigDayOut.com

Profile

The Big Day Out (BDO) is an annual music festival held in several cities in Australia and New Zealand in late January. It started in Sydney in 1992, spread to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth by 1993, with the Gold Coast and Auckland joining in 1994. As of 2003, it has featured seven or eight stages (depending on the venue) accommodating popular contemporary rock music, electronic music, mainstream international acts and local acts.

History

The festival began in 1992 as a Sydney-only show with Violent Femmes as the headline act, along with Nirvana and a range of other foreign and local alternative music acts playing at the Hordern Pavilion. In the months preceding the event, Nirvana's Nevermind was released and became an international smash hit, therefore guaranteeing the success of the festival. Kurt Cobain was ill at the time of the show.[citation needed] In 1993, the festival was extended to include Melbourne, Perth, and Adelaide.

Since 1994, the Big Day Out has travelled annually to Auckland, the Gold Coast, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth during a three-week period. The tour through the southern-hemisphere summer has become "the festival overseas acts want to be on". In 1997, organisers Ken West and Vivian Lees announced they were taking a year off, causing concern that the festival was coming to an end.

American band Pearl Jam were booked to headline the 2001 tour almost 12 months in advance, as they had just started to do festivals for the first time since problems at festivals in the early 90s. On 30 June 2000 at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, they ended their set prematurely after the crowd surged forward, crushing and fatally injuring nine people. They pulled out of the BDO, claiming that they would never play at festivals again. They did play Leeds & Reading Festivals, UK, in 2006.

The event reached the 100-shows milestone with the second of two Sydney events in 2010. With the impending milestone nearing, Lees boasted that the BDO has been able to build relationships with acts during their careers, which has become a part of the culture of BDO. The Australian said this has helped secure the BDO's world status and become recognised as one of the most successful and long-running rock festivals in the world, going on to say the festival is as much a part of Australian culture as the Melbourne Cup.

In 2010, the caravan of artists and crew contained 700 people, compared to the 70 who crossed Australia in 1993. West said even the Australian bands were taking bigger crews, "Through that the festival needs more production, more riders, more hotel rooms, more everything." A solid infrastructure has been built steadily over the years to help cope with the increasing demand of the festival, with requests for video mixers, back projections and backstage internet connections obviously becoming a lot more frequent than when touring began in 1993.

Due to increasing popularity of the event, in some years a second Sydney show has been held. The first time this occurred was in 2004, in recognition of the extreme popularity of Metallica. It occurred again in 2010, when Muse headlined, and will again occur in 2011, with Tool headlining.

Artist lineups

Big Day Out lineups by year

Since its inception in 1992, Big Day Out has attracted a large range of artists, with headlining acts including Nirvana, Muse, Violent Femmes, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, The Ramones, Soundgarden, Rammstein, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine, The Prodigy, Marilyn Manson, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Tool, Neil Young and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The annual festival has also been a launching platform for many Australian artists, with various acts performing on the tour multiple times, such as Silverchair, Powderfinger, You Am I, The Living End, Jebediah, Grinspoon, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Kisschasy and Wolfmother.

Controversy

Mosh pit death

During the 2001 Big Day Out festival in Sydney, Jessica Michalik was crushed in a mosh pit during a performance by the band Limp Bizkit. She was revived and rushed to Concord Hospital, but died of a heart attack five days later.

The band's frontman claimed the band had attempted to take precautions that fell on deaf ears, "We begged, we screamed, we sent letters, we tried to take precautions, because we are Limp Bizkit, we know we cause this big emotional blister of a crowd". The following day, Limp Bizkit had left Australia without telling the organisers, who only discovered the band's departure through a note left at the hotel.

Senior deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge issued a statement saying responsibility was on the Big Day Out's promoters Creative Entertainment Australia, saying there was overwhelming evidence that crowd density was dangerous when Limp Bizkit went on stage. Limp Bizkit was also criticised in the report, Milledge saying that Durst could have taken the situation more seriously, with his comments on stage during the attempt to rescue Michalik were "alarming and inflammatory".

Michalik's parents filed separate wrongful death claims naming promoters and security personal, and in one claim, Limp Bizkit. A New South Wales court dismissed the band and all parties connected with the band from the claim, finding they were not liable.

In 2005, United National Insurance sued Limp Bizkit in an attempt to avoid paying legal fees arising from Michalik's death. The company claimed in the lawsuit, which was filed on 11 August 2005, that Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst incited the audience at the festival to rush the stage.

Flag ban

On 21 January 2007 a decision was made by the organisers to discourage Big Day Out patrons in Sydney from bringing and displaying the Australian flag. The organisers said the decision was a result of recent ethno-religious tensions in Sydney, complaints that the previous year's festival had been marred by roving packs of aggressive flag-draped youths, and recognition that some indigenous Australians take issue with celebrating the start of British settlement.

Sections of the community had strong views supporting or objecting to the policy. Former Prime Minister John Howard, New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma and Federal Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd publicly condemned the move. Iemma suggested the event be cancelled if the organisers could not secure the safety of attendees. Main stage act Jet performed in front of a large backdrop of a black-and-white Australian flag cut-out of their name, with lead vocalist Nic Cester adding, "I can't tell anyone else what to do but we as a band are very proud to be Australian and we don't want to feel we are not allowed to feel proud".

However, other people including Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats, sports writer Peter FitzSimons and members of the hip hop outfit The Herd expressed concern that the flag was being misused by a handful of aggressive attendees in a jingoist manner, and that rock concerts were not the appropriate venue to be waving a flag.

Beenie Man controversy

In November 2009, gay rights groups in New Zealand protested after controversial rapper Beenie Man was included in the second round of announcements for the 2010 tour. Groups such as GayNZ.com cited controversial and homophobic lyrics from Beenie Man's songs such as "I'm dreaming of a new Jamaica/Come to execute all the gays". The group called for Big Day Out organisers to drop Beenie Man from the line up "to send a message that homophobia is unacceptable", and over 850 people joined a Facebook group to oppose his appearance.

On 15 November 2009, the festival's Australian organisers issued a statement on their website, confirming that Beenie Man had indeed been dropped from the lineup. Whilst they acknowledged his commitment to the 2007 Reggae Compassionate Act and his promises to not perform the offending songs on his tour, they ultimately made the decision to drop Beenie Man because they felt his appearance would "be divisive amongst our audience members and would mar the enjoyment of the event for many.

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