Byron Bay extravaganza Bluesfest is coming up to its 28th event this Easter and markedly, this year they're nominated for the seventh time in the prestigious Annual Pollstar Awards for International Music Festival Of The Year.

It's their fifth year in a row nominated for the high honour, but every year since 2012, they've lost out to the UK's beloved mega-festival Glastonbury. So is 2016 finally Bluesfest's year?

Glastonbury has reigned at the top for ten years in total — 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015. The only years it didn't win (and wasn't nominated at all) was 2006 and 2012, both years that Glastonbury took a hiatus (the latter due to complications relating to the London Olympics).

Regardless of Glasto's backseat those years, the International Music Festival Of The Year crown stayed in the UK with Reading/Leeds taking the win in 2006 and Scotland's T In The Park in 2012.

Bluesfest, meanwhile, was nominated in the very first year that the award was presented in 2004, at that time going by the name of East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival, so while Glastonbury has been stiff competition over the years, Bluesfest has always held their own.

Big Day Out has been the only other Australian festival nominated in the global awards — in 2006 and 2007, arguably at their peak — but since then, Bluesfest has been the only major Aussie festival to really hold a candle to the Coachellas, Glastos and Reading/Leeds' of the world. 

Last year, Bluesfest boasted a particularly large bill, featuring the likes of Kendrick Lamar, right in the throes of his critically acclaimed To Pimp A Butterfly, Noel Gallagher, Melissa Etheridge, Tom Jones, Rhiannon Giddens, D'Angelo and Brian Wilson. So is 2016 finally Bluesfest's time to shine?

The Annual Pollstar Awards are announced on 2 February in LA.