V Festival

The Australian V Festival is an Australian music festival, and a spin-off of the British V Festival. Like all V Festivals, the event is primarily sponsored by Virgin Mobile. In Australia the event is also sponsored by airline Virgin Blue. The V Festival is televised exclusively in Australia by MTV, and from 2008, also by their sister station vh1. For 2008, the festival will expand to four shows, with Melbourne and Perth being added.

V Festival 2008

In 2008, the festival will once again visit Sydney and the Gold Coast, and will this year extend to Melbourne and Perth.

Artist lineup 2008

The festival's first announcement was made on November 28, 2007. The festival's second announcement was made on February 10, 2008. It included the return of the Virgin Mobile Venue, the festival's fourth stage, which features local and international DJs.

Best of V Festival (Mini V) 2007

The promoter of the festival, Michael Coppel, declared Melbourne a "festival graveyard", and did not book a venue for the festival in the city, despite the fact that several very successful Big Day Out festivals had been held in Melbourne since 1993. Adelaide also missed out on the festival, disappointing many Victorian and South Australian fans who were hoping to see Pixies on their first Australian tour.

To make up for the omission, a "Best of V Festival" series of concerts was organised, also called "Mini V", in which the Pet Shop Boys, Groove Armada, Gnarls Barkley and The Rapture would play in Melbourne (at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl) on 3 April, while Pixies, Jarvis Cocker, Phoenix and New York Dolls play in Adelaide (at Memorial Drive) on the same night. The following night (April 4) the line-ups swapped cities with Pet Shop Boys et al playing in Adelaide and Pixies et al playing in Melbourne.

The move was controversial, however, with tickets for one night at the Melbourne show costing only slightly less ($110 in Melbourne, $99 in Adelaide) than a festival ticket ($124), and double that to attend both nights. The promoter responded that the similar cost was to do with the economics of scale regarding the smaller capacity venues in Melbourne and Adelaide.

V Festival Sideshows 2008

The Best Of shows will not return in 2008, for several reasons. Firstly, Melbourne has been given a full V Festival for 2008, due to the availability of the newly renovated Showgrounds. Secondly, Adelaide, after again missing out on a full-scale festival, will receive, along with other capital cities in Australia and New Zealand, a variety of sideshows from V Festival artists, intended to replace the Best Of shows. (Credit: Wikipedia).

V Festival

Websites

V Festival

V Festival Australia

V Festival MySpace

FasterLouder.com.au Media Man Australia blog

Articles

Surprise visit from the big B, by Emily Dunn and Elicia Murray - 27th March 2008

Richard Branson Plans To Make V Festival Global
Australia, South America planned...
(Credit: GIGWISE)

Richard Branson has revealed that he’s hoping to take the V Festival to more countries around the globe.

The festival has been held in the UK for a number of years and debuted in the US and Canada in 2006.

Now, the multi-millionaire hopes to make it a totally multi-national event.

He 56-year-old told Reuters: "We are also looking at Italy, Spain and South America. We will roll it out.

"The great thing about doing it in more than one country is we can coordinate it and get the bands moving between countries.

"Tours will play a much greater part in the coming years. From a band's point of view, they make more out of playing live than out of music sales."

He added that Australia is also being considered for the music extravaganza.

Branson eyes expanding Virgin music festivals, By Belinda Goldsmith - 14th Sept 2006
(Credit: The Australian)

BRITISH billionaire Richard Branson said overnight he was looking to set up music festivals in several countries, including Australia, as rock stars take to the road to offset dwindling music sales.

Sir Richard, the flamboyant chairman of the Virgin Group, launched V Fest in Britain about 10 years ago, a festival which now runs for two days a year with a list of top-ranking bands and musicians.

This month he branched out into North America, with the first Virgin Festivals in Canada and the United States and he plans to expand to Australia next year.

"We are also looking at Italy, at Spain, and South Africa. We will roll it out," he said.

With CD sales down and corporate ownership tightening radio play lists, concert tours have become the most dependable way for established acts to pay the bills and to give new acts the chance to gain some exposure.

"Tours will play a much greater part in the coming years. From a band's point of view, they make more out of playing live than out of music sales," Sir Richard told Reuters in a telephone interview from Canada.

"The great thing about doing it in more than one country is that we can coordinate it so we get the bands moving around between countries and co-ordinating their schedules."

North American tours generated a record $US3.1 billion ($4.12b) in 2005, according to online industry watchdog Pollstar and the figure is expected to be higher this year.

This trend has seen the reemergence of some older bands and singers on the concert circuit.
British band The Who kicked off the US leg of their first world tour for more than 20 years this week and will headline the Virgin Festival in Baltimore on September 23 alongside The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Sir Richard said setting up these festivals was taking Virgin back to its roots - as well as building on the increasingly tight relationship between mobile phone and music companies.

"We have gone into airlines, trains and other areas but our background was always to build a big music company," he said.

V Festival Partners

Virgin Mobile
V Festival isn't just the best thing we do, it's our best weekend of the year. Virgin Mobile is really passionate about V and making it the best possible experience for festival goers. We don't believe in just putting our logo on a banner or a beer cup - we believe in giving music lovers extras that really make a difference to their festival experience.

So, expect to find an army of Virgin Mobile Angels meeting festival goers with wheelbarrows to carry your tent and put it up. Look out for the winner of our Road to V competition opening the festival and make sure that if you are a Virgin Mobile customer that you claim your free beer and kebabs! This is our 7th year now as headline sponsor and with all the exciting new ideas planned for this year, we think it will be the best yet!

Check out www.virginmobilelouder.com to find out more.

Virgin Moble

Virgin Radio will be broadcasting the V Festival live to the nation across the August weekend. Amazing live sets from the stages and exclusive acoustic sessions from the Virgin Radio VIP Tent will be coupled with backstage interviews with all the stars.

For the latest news on bands playing the festival and the chance to win tickets to the biggest festival of the summer keep tuned into Virgin Radio on 105.8FM in London, 1215AM nationwide, on any DAB Digital Radio, on Sky Digital Ch.857 or at www.virginradio.co.uk (Credit: V Festival website)

2006 News

Michael Coppel Presents inks deal with Virgin Enterprises Limited - V Festival coming to Australia

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