How WA’s Good Day Sunshine Festival Will Stay COVID-Safe With a Rotating Stage

"Every show and festival we get to play is one step closer to rebuilding what we lost during the lockdown."

There is no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has totally disrupted life as we know it. With the need to maintain social distancing, many large-scale events like concerts and live gigs were cancelled. Plus, major music festivals including Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival have been postponed.

However, it looks like the country's first COVID-safe festival is finally going to take place, and it's happening in Western Australia.

The Good Day Sunshine festival, which is set to take place at Busselton's Barnard Park on Saturday 31 October, has announced it'll feature a rotating main stage in an effort to ensure the event adheres to the state's safety guidelines. 

As reported by NME, the festival has a total capacity of 5,000 people. Except, it'll be split into quadrants, with each quadrant having a maximum capacity of 1,250 people. Ultimately, this will lower the likelihood of virus spread.

On top of that, it'll enable contact tracing to be conducted faster, and it'll make it way easier for audiences to adhere to the current one person per two-square-metre rule. 

Each section will get their own amenities and entry/exit points, and the stage will rotate to give everyone a view of the acts. Additionally, teams of people will continuously top up hand sanitiser stations and clean shared facilities. 

If you're more of a visual learner, check out this short video to see what the layout of the festival will actually look like.

Festival-goers are encouraged to bring their own chairs and picnic blankets to create their own space within the sections. 

Additionally, each quadrant is named after famous surfing spots in the Busselton area, including Cobblestones, Windmills, The Point and Injidup. 

While this is all very exciting news for WA punters, it's also the first opportunity that local musicians have had to play in front of audiences at a festival since the coronavirus pandemic struck. 

The line-up for this year's festival features John Butler, Xavier Rudd, Josh Pyke, Vikki Thorn, Kyle Lionhart, Dulcie and Moon & Honey. 

As Dulcie drummer Madison Hanley tells Student Edge, the band feels grateful for the chance to play at Good Day Sunshine. 

"It feels pretty surreal to be playing our first festival since COVID," she says. 

"It's very exciting getting back into it all." 

Dulcie was in the middle of their own national tour when the pandemic hit, and had to cancel their remaining performances. They were also set to support alternative raggae-rock band Ocean Alley on their upcoming national tour this year, which has been postponed until 2021.

"We were halfway through a tour and came home and had to cancel the rest of our headline shows," Madi says. 

"We also had the Ocean Alley tour coming up and that has been rescheduled." 

Madi highlights how important it is for people to continue to support local musicians and buy tickets to COVID-safe events. 

"Now more than ever it's really important to come along and support your local musicians and businesses," she says. 

"It has been a really difficult time for arts and music in particular. Every show and festival we get to play is one step closer to rebuilding what we lost during the lockdown.

"We need to help each other out to make sure these events can keep happening in the future." 

You can buy tickets to Good Day Sunshine festival here. 

Header Image: South_agency / E+ via Getty Images