POPULAR: British electronic duo Disclosure will headline the inaugural 2016 McLaren Valley Music and Arts Festival. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
POPULAR: British electronic duo Disclosure will headline the inaugural 2016 McLaren Valley Music and Arts Festival. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
UK electronic duo Disclosure and American band the Flaming Lips will headline Tauranga's inaugural McLaren Valley Music and Arts Festival.
The three-day music festival will also feature Australia's EDM DJ Alison Wonderland and Philadelphia rock troubadour Kurt Vile.
New Zealand acts to perform include Avalanche City, the Datsuns, the Chills, the Phoenix Foundation and Marlon Williams and the Yarra Benders.
McLaren Valley Festival director Paxton Talbot said the announcement was just the first of three, with more international and local acts to be announced to present a festival "unique and special to New Zealand".
"I'm excited, these [Disclosure and the Flaming Lips] are two of the key headliners but there is still plenty to come.
"We've picked these artists with excellence in mind.
"Bands and performers who, no matter their genre, will be able to speak to any member of the audience on some level, just due to their sheer calibre."
The next announcement for the festival would be made within the next month, he said. Mr Talbot said the all-ages event and would feature different overnight options for the varied audience.
They would include family camping, "glamping" at a stunning lakeside site, and camping in clearings around the site, and close to the stages.
Markets, a wellness programme and themed camping would create a festival that promised to bring "a taste of Glastonbury and Coachella to the Pacific", Mr Talbot said.
He hoped to draw 10,000 to the inaugural event but had a larger vision for the festival and the wider Western Bay of Plenty.
"The big vision for the Bay is that it's a seven-day event that runs through the Mount, through Tauranga, though Katikati and it's a massive arts thing."
Tickets for McLaren Valley Music and Arts Festival will go on sale from August 24 through www.ticketmaster.co.nz or directly through www.mvf.co.nz
Three-day passes, camping tickets and youth and family options will also be available.
Headline acts ¦ Disclosure's debut album, Settle, released in 2013 was nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards. ¦ In 2002, Q magazine named the Flaming Lips one of the "50 bands to see before you die".
The line-up ¦ Alison Wonderland (Australia), Arthur Ahbez (NZ), Avalanche City (NZ), the Chills (NZ), C.W Stoneking (Australia), the Datsuns (NZ), David Dallas and the Daylight Robbery (NZ), Disclosure (UK), the Eastern (NZ), Fazerdaze (NZ), the Flaming Lips (US), Jordan Leser (Australia), Kurt Vile and the Violators (US), Marlon Williams and the Yarra Benders (NZ), the Phoenix Foundation (NZ), P-Money (NZ), the Preatures (Australia), Racing (NZ), Tiny Ruins (NZ) and Young Fathers (UK).
