The Big Day Out

The Big Day Out
Thursday 26th January 2006

The Big Day Out (BDO) was the reason we were in Sydney. When we first got to Australia I was told that the biggest music festival they had was the BDO. So I was signed up to the updates on their website as soon as I could and hence was probably one of the first people to buy tickets as soon as they went on sale last year. The BDO is actually the world’s biggest touring music festival with the majority of the bands playing at Auckland (in New Zealand), the Gold Coast (below Brisbane), Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth within the space of 16 days. The BDO has been going since 1992 when the only venue was Sydney and the headliners were Nirvana and the Voilent Femmes! Since then there have been some top class performers playing such as Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Primal Scream, RATM, Ash, Fatboy Slim, Marilyn Manson, RHCP, Foo Fighters, Basement Jaxx, Placebo, White Stripes, Metallica and Muse. They always mix a good international line up with the top Australian bands and also local bands who play at individual venues. It is only a one day festival so no camping required, just very good transportation systems to get 55000 people in and out smoothly. Sydney managed this feat superbly with huge signs at the train stations directing festival goers and loads of special BDO trains to ferry people back and forth.