Melbourne
The first Laneway Festival came together on a challenge from The Avalanches.
Danny Rogers (Laneway co-founder): “We said ‘Why not throw a first birthday party for the bar?’ We got excited and then thought ‘Well why don’t we try and close this Laneway down? After a few drinks with The Avalanches one night we asked, ‘If we closed this lane down would you guys play? They said ‘You won’t be able to close this lane. So if you do, we’ll play.’
With a line-up pulled from acts who played the Summer Series, along with headliners in The Avalanches and touring Canadians The Dears, the debut festival pulled 1400.
Danny Rogers: “Our mate Monkey had screen printed over 2,500 posters that he had stuck up himself all over the city. I had been verbally told that Cut Copy would play but then someone from their camp saw one and rang their agent to ask how they had been confirmed on an event that they had no idea about! We ended up taking down all the posters, so needless to say it was not a good start for us.
“We soldiered on without a marketing budget and announced our first Laneway Festival. It sold out really quickly. I remember being very, very inexperienced but having loads of great support from our friends and the music industry. Plus all the bands gave us inspiration that we might be onto something.”
Line-up: Architecture In Helsinki, Art of Fighting, Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set, The Dears, Eskimo Joe, Gersey, Ground Components, The Avalanches' Brains show
