Floodlights ProfileYuki Fest returns to Milton, New South Wales, for another thrilling edition in January.
The event made its debut with a sold-out offering in 2024 before returning again this year and next year. Taking place on Saturday, 23 January – during NSW’s long weekend holiday – the 2027 instalment of Yuki Fest will transform the town into a site that celebrates live music, community, and culture.
Founded by Kurt Bailey (former manager of Gang of Youths and co-founder of Bar Yuki), Ashlee Bailey (manager and co-founder of Bar Yuki), and award-winning brewers Damien and Alice Martin of Dangerous Ales, Yuki Fest offers something different to local music fans.
Hosted by Bar Yuki and the Milton Hotel, next year’s festival arrives with an epic line-up of homegrown artists, starring Floodlights, Gordi, C.O.F.F.I.N, Letters to Lions, Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys, Charlie Collins, Mac the Knife, and many more.
Tickets are now available – with a summer day and a spectacular all-Australian line-up, how can you not want to attend?
Ahead of next year’s festival, The Music caught up with the Yuki Fest team about all things live music and hosting an independent festival in NSW.
The Music: How did Yuki Fest come together? What was it inspired by?
Damien Martin: It all happened pretty organically. Between our two venues, Bar Yuki and The Milton Hotel, we'd been putting on heaps of great live shows and noticed more and more people coming out to support them. There was clearly a real appetite for live music in the area, so we thought, why not turn it into something bigger?
The first Yuki Fest was pretty simple. We had bands playing across both venues, and people could wander between them throughout the day and night. We had around 500 people turn up, and everyone absolutely loved it.
The following year, we decided to take it up a notch. We got council approval to close the laneway between the venues and turned the whole thing into a proper street party. That one brought in over 1,500 people, which was pretty wild to see.
Now we're heading into our third year and hoping to go even bigger again. The support from Milton and the surrounding communities has been incredible, and it's exciting to see something that started as a bit of an idea grow into an event people genuinely look forward to.
The Music: How was the line-up for the 2027 event curated?
Alice Martin: We've all been involved in live music down here for a long time, so we've got a pretty good feel for what works in the area and what people get excited about.
But ultimately, we're drawn to independent bands and artists who have something special going on. It might be their live show, their songwriting, or just a certain energy around them that gets us excited.
Kurt generally takes the lead on the bookings and throws around artists he's been listening to or thinks would be a great fit. Then we all have a listen and go from there.
We don't really chase trends or just book names for the sake of it. We want a line-up that's interesting, has plenty of energy and introduces people to artists they might not have discovered otherwise.
The Music: What can punters expect from Yuki Fest 2027, especially if they've never attended?
Kurt Bailey: Just a bloody good summer street party, really!
The best thing about Yuki Fest is the atmosphere. It's a whole bunch of people coming together in a beautiful little coastal town, enjoying incredible live music, good food, cold drinks and the summer sun.
We've got bands like Floodlights and C.O.F.F.I.N bringing some serious energy, but then we've also got incredible songwriters like Gordi and Charlie Collins. There's a really nice mix across the day.
Whether you want to be right up the front in the pit throwing yourself around or sitting back with a drink soaking up the music and summer vibes, there's something for everyone.
We want people to walk away thinking that was one of the best days of their summer.
The Music: What's unique about the NSW independent music scene, and why do you work so hard to spotlight it?
Ashlee Bailey: Being fully independent venue owners and operators ourselves, supporting independent artists is something that's really important to us.
We genuinely believe some of the best music coming out of Australia right now is being made by artists who are doing things their own way. They're building their own audiences, making incredible records and putting everything into their live shows without necessarily having a big machine behind them.
There's something really exciting and authentic about that, and it's the kind of music we've always loved championing at our venues.
Yuki Fest is just another opportunity for us to give those artists a bigger platform and hopefully introduce them to a whole new audience. If we can help shine a light on great independent music while putting on an awesome event for our community, that's a pretty good outcome in our eyes.
The Music: How did you approach bringing back the festival next year, given the challenges facing festivals in Australia, especially smaller independent events?
Ashlee Bailey: I think all of us involved have always been pretty willing to have a crack at things and take a few risks. It's probably part of why we ended up running independent venues in the first place!
There's no denying it's a tough time for festivals and live music in general. Costs keep going up, and there's definitely a lot of financial risk involved, especially when you're doing it independently.
But we genuinely love what we do, and we love putting on something special for our town. Seeing the streets packed with people enjoying themselves and watching these incredible bands makes all the hard work worthwhile.
Our approach has always been to keep improving the event, listen to what people want and make sure we're delivering a really great experience.
We figure if we keep doing right by the people who support us, hopefully they'll keep doing right by us. That's what's got us this far!
The Music: Putting on the event between Bar Yuki and The Milton Hotel, what obstacles did you run into compared with holding it at one venue?
Alice Martin: The biggest challenge initially was having two separate venues operating under different liquor licences.
At the first festival, people could walk between the venues to catch different bands, but they couldn't take their drinks with them, which made things a little tricky.
That's part of what inspired us to close the street for the second festival. It gave everyone a central space to hang out, we could put a bar out on the street, and it started to feel like a proper festival rather than just separate gigs happening at the same time.
We still had some licensing restrictions though, which meant people couldn't freely move between the venues and the street with their drinks.
For 2027, we've managed to secure licensing that will allow people to move between both venues and the festival street area with their drinks, which is a massive step forward for us.
We think that's really going to bring the whole concept together. People will be able to wander around, discover different spaces, grab food and drinks and just enjoy the day without those barriers.
It's something we've been working towards since the beginning, so we're pretty excited to finally make it happen.
Tickets to Yuki Fest 2027 are now available.
