Bay of Islands Music Festival condensed into one day of full on sounds

Editor. Northland Age·Northern Advocate·

16 Jan, 2020 08:00 PM2 mins to read

Shihad have been moved from the Sunday night to the now Saturday-only Bay of Islands Music Festival next week.

Rockers and ravers will be sharing the field with soulsters and skankers when a reduced Bay of Islands Music Festival moves from a two-day event to a one-dayer next week.

The Bay of Islands Music Festival was originally planned as two-day festival on January 25 and 26 - Anniversary Weekend - at Waitangi, with the Saturday the roots reggae and soul day and Sunday filled with rock acts. There's a mix of top international and NZ acts.

Festival organiser Jackie Sanders, of Jacman Entertainment, said after two previous sold out Bay of Islands festival it was clear that the Sunday was not going to sell out so a decision had to be made to condense eh event into one day.

"Being Northland, the reggae on Saturday was going great, but the rock on the Sunday was not going as well at all. I've had such good sellouts at previous festivals, and they've been such fantastic events, I didn't want to risk the Sunday not selling out as well, so thought a one day event would work better," Sanders said.

"It's going to be a great day with a great variety of music, with something for everybody really."

She said refunds would be offered, including to those who had bought tickets for the Sunday but were unable to attend the Saturday, or people could have the option of their tickets being upgraded to VIP passes.

Mr Boombastic himself, Shaggy, will headline the now reduced to one day Bay of Islands Music Festival next week. Photo / Jonathan Mannion

"It's going to be like Northland's very own Big Day Out now and it will be built up even more in the future to be Northland's very own version (of the ex-Auckland Big Day Out event)."

And Sanders said one of the initial acts she did not want to cut from the trimmed-back line up was Northland band Otium.

"It's important to have local music represented too."

The gates at Waitangi will open at 2pm on Saturday with Otium first on the stage shortly afterwards.

Next up will be Ladi6, New Zealand's queen of hip-hop, soul and R&B. She will be followed by Kiwi roots act Black Seeds then reggae legends Toots and the Maytals will take to the stage.

Next up on the stage will be Aussie hard rock band Wolfmother, followed by Kiwi rock gods Shihad.