The Power 50: Peter Noble OAM

Byron Bay Bluesfest kicked off as the East Coast International Blues & Roots Festival in 1990, with Peter Noble (who had an extensive career in booking, labels and touring prior) becoming a partner of the annual event in 1994. Noble was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to live and recorded music, tourism and community in 2016, while 2018 saw him receive a Keeping The Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis. Bluesfest was inducted into the NSW Tourism Hall of Fame in 2017.  

Celebrating your 30th should never be a small occasion - Bluesfest certainly made the most of that with the much-loved festival’s 30th anniversary event in 2019. Included on the bill were acts like Iggy Pop, The Saboteurs, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Mavis Staples, Tash Sultana, Norah Jones, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic and more. The line-up paid off too, with patronage up 9.2% on the previous year - a total of 100,847 attendees across the 2019 festival - and a nomination for Best International Music Festival from Pollstar. 

The event would see Bluesfest beat out acts like Ed Sheeran and Metallica to be named the top grossing live event on Pollstar’s International Live Box Office charts after bringing in over $11 million. "It’s not every day you wake up to find Bluesfest is on top of the international live music magazine, Pollstar’s International Box Office, holding the number one spot as the highest grossing event in the world,” said Noble at the time. “Pinch me! I must still be dreaming! The thrill is electric to see an Aussie independent festival featuring primarily blues and roots music come out on top!"

In August it was revealed that the festival had an economic impact of $83.4 million for the year. As part of a study commissioned by the festival, it was shared that of this figure (which represents the amount injected into the New South Wales economy), $35.5 million was spent in local Byron Shire area with a total of $59.1 million spent in the New South Wales’ Northern Rivers region as a result of the 2019 event. This represented a growth of 18.7% since the 2018 event, with each visitor spending an average daily amount of $304 while in the Byron Shire, Northern Rivers and New South Wales economies.

"2019 was a milestone event with our 30th anniversary being the highest grossing event ever in the Bluesfest history. We delivered a stellar line-up to a full house across Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was also the year we introduced the 'single-use, plastic-free back-of-house’ with a ‘bring your own bottle’ initiative and 2019 was the year we took home Best Regional Event at the Australian Event Awards."