The Falls Festival

The Falls Festival is a New Year's Eve music festival, held annually in Marion Bay, Tasmania and Lorne, Victoria Australia since 1993. It lasts three days, from December 29 to January 1 each year. The headline acts play mostly over two evenings, December 30 and December 31. Both festivals run simultaneously and swapping line-ups over different days.

Snout playing at the 2001 Falls Festival
The festival started in 1993 with a small one day concert, held in Lorne, Victoria, then known as Rock Above The Falls. It attracted nearly 11,000 people, far exceeding the organisers expectations, requiring them to quickly negotiate with neighboring farmers for the use of their land to accommodate the crowd.

In 1995 the event changed to a two day format, and in 1996 the name was changed to The Falls Festival for the first time. The 1999 festival was the first to be held off the Lorne site, moved temporarily to the Torquay site of the Offshore Festival .

In 2003, two events were held simultaneously for the first time; one in Lorne, and an additional event at Marion Bay, Tasmania. The same acts played at both events; the December 30 acts who played at Lorne, play December 31 at Marion Bay, and vice versa. Future festivals retained this two-location format.

Due to the length of the event, people bring a tent and camp out at the event; both locations have nearby beaches. Many artists playing at the Falls Festival are traditionally of the blues & roots genre, however it is not exclusively of this style, with rock, hip hop and electronic style acts also playing.

Valley Stage at the 2006 Falls Festival in Marion Bay
Contents
Falls Festival 2003
Music of Australia
v • d • e
Timeline
Genres
classical · hip-hop · Drum n Bass · indigenous Australian music · Ska · immigrant music · jazz · country · rock (pub rock · indie · punk · metal)
Organisations
ARIA · APRA · CMMA
Awards
ARIA Music Awards · Country Music Awards of Australia · The Deadlys · Australian Music Prize · J Award · WAMi Awards · NT Indigenous Music Awards · Perth Dance Music Awards
Charts
Kent Music Report · ARIA Charts · Triple J Hottest 100
Festivals
Big Day Out · Splendour in the Grass · Livid · Homebake · Falls · Tamworth Country Music Festival · Womadelaide · National Folk Festival · Overcranked
Media
Countdown · Rage · Triple J · ABC · Community Radio
National anthem
Advance Australia Fair
Cities and regions
Adelaide · Brisbane · Canberra · Melbourne · Sydney · Perth · Hobart

Australian musicPortal
Performers at the 2003-04 event include Australian artists Xavier Rudd, The Beautiful Girls, Gerling, Regurgitator and The Waifs; and international acts Michael Franti and Spearhead, Pennywise, Reel Big Fish, and Ozomatli. Like many Australian festivals, the event also promotes local bands, with many Victorian and Tasmanian artists also performing at their respective state's festival. Solo female performer Missy Higgins also pleased crowds, promoting the release of her album and several popular singles, for which she was later recognised by receiving multiple awards at the ARIA Awards in 2005.

Falls Festival 2004
The 2004-05 festival was again held at both venues. Both sites sold out very early - the only Falls Festival to sell as fast was the 1999 event. Artists performing at both events included:
The Black Keys
De La Soul
Billy Bragg
The Living End
The John Butler Trio
Missy Higgins
The Thrills
Veruca Salt
Spiderbait
The Cat Empire
Xavier Rudd
Donavon Frankenreiter
You Am I
The Beautiful Girls
Vusi Mahlasela
Hilltop Hoods
Rocket Science
Dakota Star
Bob Brozman
Downsyde
TZU
Butterfingers
The Panics
Hayden
Sarah Blasko
Even
The Cops
Betchadupa
The Spazzys
The Vasco Era
Carus & The True Believers
Epicure
Mia Dyson
Ash Grunwald
The Hot Lies
Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set
The Roys

Falls Festival 2005
Artists who performed at the 2005 event include:
The Dandy Warhols
Ozomatli
The Shins
Ian Brown
Wolfmother
Pete Murray
The Beautiful Girls
The Vasco Era
Faker
TZU
The Grates
Hoodoo Gurus
The Zutons
Sarah Blasko
End Of Fashion
The White Buffalo
The Mess Hall
Evermore
Dallas Crane
Lior
Matt Walker and Ashley Davies
67 Special
Ugly Duckling
The Cat Empire
Rolling Blackouts
Eric Bibb
Kelly Stoltz
Little Birdy
Ash Grunwald
Dappled Cities Fly
True Live
Offcutts
Katalyst and RuCL
Rob Sawyer
Mia Dyson
Youth Group
Dan Sultan & Scott Wilson
The Embers
2005 was a record year for speed of ticket sales; tickets for the Marion Bay festival sold out two and a half days after going on sale on August 15, and Lorne tickets selling out one week after coming onsale.

Further allocations of tickets for both festivals were released during December and sold out within hours of coming on sale. An unlimited number of Falls Festival patrons were welcome to attend the 'Falls Cinema' on Thursday 29th December (One day earlier than the official kick-off) in an effort to minimize traffic congestion. It was much the same in Tasmania, however the number of tickets available were capped at 9000.

Falls Festival 2006
In early July, the new website for the 2006 event was launched. People were able to subscribe to the official mailing list and be entered into the draw to be offered tickets ahead of the official release date of August 16. Subscribers that were selected would be notified by July 30. Tickets for the 2006 festival were put on sale as of 9am, August the 16th. All tickets to the Lorne event were gone in just over 2 hours. The Marion Bay event followed suit, with all tickets sold out within 3.5 hours.
The announced performers as of December 28, include:
Modest Mouse
Michael Franti and Spearhead
Wolfmother
The Bees
John Butler Trio
Saul Williams
The Black Seeds
Matt Costa
The Vasco Era
Dan Kelly and The Alpha Males
The Fumes
Dallas Frasca & Her Gentlemen
You Am I
The Audreys
Youth Group
Josh Pyke
Blue King Brown
Jamie Lidell
Hilltop Hoods
Eskimo Joe
Unleash the Nugget
Wolf & Cub
Dexter[disambiguation needed]
Timmy Curran
Labjacd
Scribe
The Sleepy Jackson
The Mountain Goats
Little Birdy
The Exploders
Jen Cloher & The Endless Sea
Dan Sultan
Cansei de Ser Sexy
Ground Components
FourPlay String Quartet
Custom Kings
Muph N Plutonic
The Embers

Ticketing
Restrictions on ticket sales were made in 2006 in an attempt to curb the increasing practice of ticket resale, commonly known as 'scalping', as well as to make the access to tickets more equitable. The changes reflected similar alterations made to ticket sale procedures of other major Australian music festivals such as Splendour in the Grass and The Big Day Out. Previously, Tickets had been released for sale in bulk and with no limits on the number of tickets able to be purchased by an individual, resulting in a high incidence of individuals purchasing multiple tickets, and a subsequent sell-out of tickets within a very short period of time, often within 24 or even 12 hours.

The restrictions included a purchasing limit of four tickets per any individual, as well as the initiation of an online ticket lottery, which randomly allocated the sale of approximately 50% of all tickets to a list of people who had registered their interest on the Festival's website. [1] Tickets were also released on multiple dates rather than in bulk, so that sales were more manageable and there was increased consumer accessibility to the sale of tickets.

Falls Festival 2007
The artists at the festival of 2007/08 include:
Kings of Leon
Groove Armada
Paul Kelly
Midnight Juggernauts
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
The Waifs
Gotye
Built to Spill
José González
The Go! Team
Blackalicious
The Mess Hall
Girl Talk
Kev Carmody
Whiskey Go Go's
Neville Staple's Specials
Adam Cousens**
Bridget Pross**
Magic Dirt*
Sarah Blasko*
Children Collide*
Jackson Jackson*
The Pipettes
The Herd
Lior
Little Red
Operator Please
Old Man River
Angus and Julia Stone
The Beautiful Girls
Regurgitator
Clare Bowditch
Downhills Home*
Jeff Lang
Cut Off Your Hands
The Scientists of Modern Music
Diafrix
Mattafix
Busdriver
The Panics
Dirty Harry and the Rockets**
The Cops
Nathan Weldon and the Two Timers**
Special Patrol*
Soft Tigers*
Dukes of Windsor*
Macromantics*
The Paper Scissors*
Dances With Voices*
Goons of Doom*
Whitley
La Fiesta Sound System*
Favela Rock DJ’s*
Tokyo Apartment Party DJ’s*
Thief Featuring DJ Gsan & Mugen with Paris Well*
Jennifer Tutty & Katie Drover
Hoops*
Funktrust DJ’s*
Uber Lingua DJ’s*
New Young Pony Club*
(* Lorne Only), (** Marion Bay only)

Ticketing
Ticket purchasing procedures changed again in 2007, extending on initial changes made to procedures in 2006. Changes included:
The extension of the ticket lottery from 50% to 80% of all tickets - intended to increase the equity of ticket sale

The centralisation of all ticket sales to the Falls Festival Website - intended to eliminate the need to line up outside stores overnight in order to purchase a ticket, as well as prevent criminal problems associated with it such as littering and drinking in public
The inclusion of a name and date of birth printed on the Festival ticket - intended to further restrict scalping practices

Tickets went on sale to the general public on Monday 10th of September at 9am AEST, with the 14,500 tickets to the Lorne event selling out on the day they were released.