THROUGH THE LENS: Byron Bay Bluesfest and Rooster Walk 2024

This week’s column features two festivals at opposite ends of the world that were held over two holiday weekends: Australia’s Byron Bay Bluesfest on Easter weekend and Rooster Walk in Virginia over Memorial Day weekend. 

Bluesfest has been covered for this column several times by Steve Ford, including last year, but this time he took a break from reporting, focusing his energy only on his fabulous photos shared below.

It’s the first time Rooster Walk has been featured. When my MerleFest photographer pal Willa Stein said she was attending, I jumped at the chance of including it. Willa, in turn, enlisted the assistance of photographer Eric Rayburn. Their photos are included in the gallery below.

Byron Bay Bluesfest 2024

Australia’s Byron Bay Bluesfest began in 1990 at the Arts Factory in Byron Bay, on a coastal corner of New South Wales, as a four-day blues festival over the Easter weekend. In 2010 it moved to its current home, the spectacular 300-acre Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, seven miles north of Byron Bay. In 2014, the Boomerang Festival, which highlighted Indigenous artists, became part of the festival. From an original crowd of 6,000, it swelled to an audience of 100,000 over what has now become a five-day event.

But it has also experienced some hurdles. The 2020 and 2021 fests were canceled due to COVID, and the 2023 attendance decreased to 70,000 in the aftermath of controversy involving one of the acts in that year’s lineup. Just before this year’s Bluesfest, another Australian festival, Splendour in the Grass, announced the cancellation of this year’s July event, causing concern in many fans about the general state of music events in the country, including Bluesfest. 

All that said, this year’s fest went off to great acclaim. A-listers Elvis Costello, Drive-by Truckers, The Tedeschi Trucks Band, Ben Harper, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and Steve Poltz mixed it up with a fine selection of Australian performers. 

Rooster Walk 2024 

Sitting on 150 acres of rolling fields and forests, Rooster Walk is held on Pop’s Farm in rural Virginia, 55 miles south of Roanoke, over Memorial Day weekend. It is a community nonprofit that was created in 2009 in memory of two childhood friends who passed away in their 20s: Edwin “the Rooster” Penn and Walker Shank. 

To date, the fest has raised more than $323,000 for local and regional charities, with much of it going to the “Penn-Shank Memorial Scholarship Fund” for outstanding Martinsville (Virginia) High School seniors.

Since its inception, Rooster Walk has become a welcome addition to the other, better known Virginia fests, including Floyd, Galax, and Red Wing. Rooster Walk features six music stages and plenty of on-site camping options. As with other fests it is largely volunteer-staffed and family-friendly. The fest offers a wide variety of activities for children, as well as craft beer for adults, and numerous opportunities for everyone to enjoy its rural setting with river floats, yoga, and even a frisbee golf course.

This year saw an eclectic lineup with over 40 performers headlined by Emmylou Harris, North Mississippi All Stars, Jim Lauderdale, and Daniel Donato.

Click on any photo below to view the gallery as a full-size slideshow.