Bluesfest attracted merely 6000 patrons when it started in 1990, but now attracts more than 100,000.
It’s a big crowd, and this year you might expect them to be a bit wet, a bit muddy, and very keen to get a cup of coffee.
You might be wondering what it takes to supply coffee at Bluesfest. The coffee, cups, grinders and machines are supplied by Bun Coffee, a local outfit whose coffee roasting business is located in Byron Bay.
However, the actual staffing of the machines is organised by Bluesfest itself.
This will be Bun Coffee’s seventh Bluesfest, so you would expect that they have the numbers down pat. During Bluesfest Bun Coffee will sell 30,000 BioCups of coffee, use 200 kilograms of 100 per cent organic certified fair-trade coffee beans to feed the six coffee machines running non-stop at three sites: the Big Red Tent in the middle of the Bluesfest site near the Crossroads Stage has three machines; two other sites are outside the perimeter fence in the camping areas. The camping machines operate from 6am until midday and can get very busy around breakfast time so don’t be late!
BLUESFEST GOING AHEAD AS PLANNED
Despite the wet weather at Bluesfest, and some water over the carpark areas, longtime Festival director Peter Noble says that the Bluesfest site, ‘did not get the level of rainfall that other nearby areas experienced.’ If you are camping, he added, ‘please know that our campgrounds have not been damaged.’ The extensive weatherproofing put in place will enable the Festival to ‘go as planned’, with Bluesfest being over 93 per cent sold out as of Monday 3 April, he said.
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