Halsey, Tyler the Creator and Ella Mai are among the international artists who will perform at Bay Dreams 2020. Photos / Getty Images
Halsey, Tyler the Creator and Ella Mai are among the international artists who will perform at Bay Dreams 2020. Photos / Getty Images
The first line-up for Bay Dreams 2020 has been announced with Tyler, The Creator; Halsey; Skepta; Yelawolf and Ella Mai revealed as headliners.
The headliners are among the 29 international and local acts announced to be performing at the festival, set to be held at Mount Maunganui for the fifth time on January 2, 2020. Other big hitters included in line-up announcement include Ocean Alley, Netsky, Mitch James, Gunna and Sub Focus.
American rapper Tyler, the Creator makes his first visit to New Zealand in more than five years on the back of his sold-out UK and US tours and following the release of his critically-acclaimed album IGOR.
American singer-songwriter Halsey, who performs at the Mount festival only, is one of the biggest names in pop music today, with hits such as Without Me, Bad at Love, Now or Never, Him and I with G-Eazy, Alone featuring Big Sean and Stefflon Don, and her feature track Closer with The Chainsmokers.
Bay Dreams festival director Pato Alvarez said his team had been working with some of the artists for the last two years in a bid to secure them for Bay Dreams, with the rest being up to a year in the making - and there were still more to come.
"There will be at least a few more international surprises to be announced very soon after the first release."
He said the line-up was chosen from a combination of daily research as well as identifying big names in music - both up-and-coming and established artists.
"We also have four stages and many genres of music styles so it's a bit of a process to come up with 40-plus groups or artists and find the right mix, but that's what we do and we love it.
"Bay Dreams has built a name already to the festivalgoers and they know they can expect nothing but the best of international and local bands or artists and next year won't be any different, as you can see our line up is a world-class line-up".
In 2019, Bay Dreams expanded to include a sister event in Nelson and both events sold out. Since then, Alvarez and fellow Bay Dreams festival director Mitch Lowe, as well as Bay Dreams Nelson festival director Toby Burrows, have been travelling the world checking out festivals such as Lollapalooza and Coachella. They have come away with some exciting ideas to implement at Bay Dreams 2020.
Bay Dreams has a reputation for securing some of the biggest names in music - including hip-hop icon Cardi B who played at this year's festival - with the Mount Maunganui festival selling out of its 30,000 tickets in less than three weeks.
Alvarez said they expect the same demand for 2020.
"Bay Dreams will always continue to focus on bringing the best line-ups to the country, however, I am excited for our team to place an equal focus on creative production, added facilities, improved crowd management, and new experiential elements working alongside some amazing new partner brands," Lowe said.
Meanwhile, the first headliner for the Bay Dreams warm-up party in Nelson on January 3 has been revealed as Shapeshifter. Friction; Kings of the Rollers; and The Upbeats are also joining the Nelson pre-party, with more acts still to be announced.
For Mount Maunganui's pre-party, organisers are promising a "huge announcement" for the January 1 event.
Earlier this year, Bay Dreams performers such as Cardi B, Peking Duk and Joey Bada$$ shared Tauranga-related content on their social media sites to their millions of followers. One Cardi B post of her performance at Bay Dreams has had more than 7.5million views.
Tourism Bay of Plenty marketing manager Kath Low said whether a celebrity's post would benefit the city through attracting more visitors was dependent on the content and audience.
Once the line-up was revealed and they knew how much time artists had Tourism Bay of Plenty would consider promoting the area's popular tourism activities to them.
Bay Dreams 2020 line-up: Tyler, The Creator Halsey Skepta Yelawolf Ella Mai Ocean Alley Netsky Mitch James Gunna IAMDDB Shoreline Mafia Winston Surfshirt Sons of Zion Sub Focus Friction Sasasas Dimension Kings of the Rollers Flux Pavilion Golden Features Holy Goof Benny L Dirtyphonics UZ Trei Tones and I K+Lab Flowidus Distortion
Tickets go on sale at 7pm on August 14. Spark customers will be able to access pre-sale tickets for 48 hours from 7pm on August 12. Every Bay Dreams 2020 ticket will include free bus tickets for their park-and-ride services around the city to minimise traffic congestion.
