Gearing up: EarthTonz Festival producer Dan Allen prepares the stage at Gibbston Valley Winery yesterday
EarthTonz – all you need to know
When: Today, tomorrow and Sunday Where: Gibbston Valley Winery Tickets: $149 plus booking fee, two-day camping pass $15, bus $30 The line-up: Today (2pm-midnight) – Edge Base Camp stage: Rhythmonyx, Ghetto Blasters, Knights of the Dub Table Sound System, Station Agents, Hunting Bears, The Fletcherz, Dubside and Simple Thieves Tomorrow (10am-3am) – Main stage: The Crystal Method, Tommy Lee (Motley Crue) & DJ Aero, DJ Muggs (Cypress Hill, Soul Assassins), The Freestylers, Kraak & Smaak, Planet of the Drums (featuring AK1200, DJ Dara, MC Messinian), Boombox, Ana Sia, Heatbox, Minuit The rules: R18 event, no pass-outs. No alcoholic beverages or glass containers; cars will be checked. No outdoor cooking or open flames. Beer ($5), wine, food, soft drinks and bottled water can be purchased onsite. Toilets, showers, 24-hour security, medical facilities, shops, free onsite parking (donation).
A legendary line-up of international dance musicians will play to revellers at Queenstown’s biggest-ever New Year’s gig this weekend.
DJs and musos from around the world and New Zealand – including bad boy rocker Tommy Lee and DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill – will perform at the inaugural EarthTonz Festival at Gibbston Winery.
Starting today and finishing on Sunday, music lovers will be treated to an extensive list of dance, house, hip-hop, dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass.
Other top performers include the famous Crystal Method and British break beat musicians The Freestylers. San Francisco dubstep queen Ana Sia and Kiwis Minuit also take the stage.
Organisers plan to make EarthTonz an annual event and festival producer Dan Allen says there’s a reason for the heavyweight line-up.
“Rather than go small in our first year, we wanted to have a pretty big impact.
“We didn’t want to run another festival of just Kiwi artists. There’s nothing wrong with that but to make a name for ourselves and leave an imprint, we needed international acts,” he says.
“We booked nine international artists. I probably talked to about 50 – some were either booked or wanted outrageous money.
“It’s a strong line-up and we’ve been very fortunate to get some of the names we did, that calibre.”
Rumours of underwhelming ticket sales have been circulating and Allen does not expect to reach the 10,000 capacity. Tickets will be available on the door and promo workers have been handing out flyers in Queenstown all week.
But with thousands of festival-goers ready to party to 30 hours of live music in the spectacular venue, Allen is still expecting the festival to make its mark.
“At the end of the day we’re not going to be at capacity but I think we’re going to have a really good crowd there,” he says.
“We actually didn’t come up with the idea of EarthTonz until May – so it has all come together really fast.
“There isn’t another big New Year’s Eve concert in the south and Gibbston Valley is probably as perfect a venue as I’ve ever worked at, both in terms of logistics and the spectacular scenery.
“I’ve sent images to all the artists from overseas and they’re all like ‘oh my God’.”
Allen’s United States company GMS Services Inc. has gone into partnership with Auckland’s Alpine Entertainment Ltd, which runs the popular Gibbston Valley Winery Summer Concerts.
They formed a new management company EarthTonz Entertainment Ltd.
There is camping space for 5000 punters, car parking and buses running between Queenstown and the venue.
Testing out new tunes
ELECTRONIC band Minuit will be one of the only Kiwi acts on the main stage.
The three-piece dance act – with Paul Dodge, lead singer Ruth Carr and Ryan Beehre (right) – will play tomorrow afternoon.
Dodge: “We’re on quite early in the day – so people shouldn’t pace themselves, they should just jump right into it. I like the afternoon build-up sets because everyone is excited about what is to come.
“We’re working on a new album so this is a great opportunity to test some things that are pretty raw and explosive, and we’ll meld in our better-known tracks.”
Dodge adds: “The line-up is incredible. I don’t know how they’ve done it, to be honest, somebody has pulled some strings.”
Wowing the crowd with ‘weird’
INNOVATIVE musician Heatbox describes himself as a “one-man funky a capella group from outer space”.
The US beatboxer, aka Aaron Heaton, uses his voice to produce all the sounds in his songs, recording and looping the elements to build unique tracks.
Heaton says: “It’s about three-fourths songs I’ve previously written and sometimes I just go off on a weird tangent and do what comes to mind. It’s great to get out there in front of people who have never seen me before.
What I do is so weird that I like to see people’s faces when they watch me do it.”
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