PHOTOS: VIEW THE GALLERY
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The “Boss” aka Bruce Springsteen could be the first international act to perform in the shadow of majestic Mount Roland.
That’s if the man behind the success of Tassie’s new outdoor live music venue gets his way.
Last month under great duress Skyfields at West Kentish proved it is capable of hosting the world’s biggest touring acts and has a crowd capacity of up to 15,000 people.
Skyfields director Dave Sykes is shooting for the stars and thinks he has the formula right to entice acts of Springsteen’s stature to put the event on their wish list of places to play instead of leaving Tasmania off tour schedules altogether.
However, first-up the ambitious Sykes had to overcome the threat of a possible wash out. Armageddon-type weather blew into the North-West on the eve of the inaugural Skyfields concert on March 19. The unseasonal storm wasn’t the end of an event years in the planning as the huge outdoor stage built from scratch in a lush paddock next to a tourist resort was standing even if 1.1 kilometres of temporary site fencing and 13 marquees were no longer upright.
Kentish tourism identity Des Brown built his Eagles Nest Retreat on the family dairy farm to capture the jaw-dropping panoramic view the property offers of the mountain. The location helps give Skyfields the credentials on paper to become a major fixture but to have to cancel the first concert would have delivered a sucker punch to confidence. Not to mention the thought of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra players at the Gateway Hotel in Devonport twiddling thumbs at a cost of $32,000 a day.
Sykes isn’t an industry novice he’s been involved in the Tasmanian music scene for a decade and outwardly kept his cool as he made the tough and risky call to go on with a high profile debut show with the TSO and ARIA-winning songstress Missy Higgins as headliners.
Sykes’s dream could have turned to nightmare but like any good plot-line the storm before a happy ending makes a better story and the North-West finally had a fledgling signature event on its calendar. The next step is where to from here in order to realise its potential.
The first question is how many Skyfields concerts does he envisage will involve the TSO?
Sykes said the TSO has been one of the key aspects of establishing a stand-alone exclusive show at a unique outdoor location – but a lot will now depend on the artists involved in any future concerts.
“It depends on which artists are touring Australia and which artists like the idea of performing with the TSO to make it a spectacular show,” Sykes said.
“We want the TSO to be involved in as many of the concerts as possible which stems from wanting to do one-off and exclusive shows.”
“The TSO is world-renowned it brings a lot of credibility and offers our artists something they could not get anywhere else. The combination of that and the location makes the model stand alone.”
“We’re still at proof of concept (stage) with another two shows to do to get ourselves to a level where we have a brand,” he said.
Sykes worked for the past year with leading Australian touring company Frontier to develop the business model to allow Skyfields to bring big acts to the state on a regular basis. It’s already been a game-changer when national acts like Missy Higgins left Tassie off her last tour but since playing at spectacular Skyfields she had nothing but good things to say about it.
Sykes said the magic of Mount Roland affects everyone which the artists raved about.
“The mountain is its own show and provided its own backdrop that worked brilliantly,” he said.
Back to the weather, which Sykes said resulted in a heavy downpour and highest recorded winds on the hill where the venue was.
“We spent four days building the site with eight people and the decision had to be made whether we could rebuild it in 16 hours to hold the event,” Sykes said.
“The insurance assessor said we were quite within our rights to cancel but the decision was to go on.”
It put a strain on the site and the crew and there were issues but overall the feedback from patrons was 98% good, Sykes said.
”We’ve got ideas to make it better and we’re well aware of what went wrong on the day and how to fix it,” Sykes said.
The crew will begin the set-up two days earlier. This year it was a five day set-up and took three days to pull-down. Sykes said as a brand new event the performers like Missy Higgins took a risk to do it. She performed with the TSO for the first time and it was the first show the TSO did that was not their own. There was no rehearsal on site due to the weather but the show ran like clockwork.
Issues with the camping area, bar and transport out of the event would be fixed, Sykes promised.
He said when he spoke to a number of TSO players afterward they all loved doing it and were blown away.
“Missy thanked me and said it was the most exciting show she’s ever done,” Sykes said.
A spokeswoman said the TSO enjoyed performing with Missy Higgins and would play at Skyfields again if invited back.
“If they want us back we’re more than happy to come back,” she said.
The 48-piece TSO came with 12 crew and was costly to move about but was worth it.
“I’ve never worked with anything as well put together,” Sykes said of the TSO.
Sykes said his favourite moment of the whole event was the moment the first patron came on site. It was the culmination of three-years and all the dreams and plans of everybody involved.
The first Skyfields was self-funded but it needs to get government support and sponsorship in the future, Sykes said.
“When I went to talk to people and said I wanted to put the Rolling Stones in a paddock just outside Sheffield; and I wanted to do it twice a year, I could understand people might feel they just had a nut case arrive from the North-West,” he said.
“We didn’t get the support we were hoping for to start with but we’ve put some runs on the board and we need Tasmania to support the event.
”We perceive this can be one the world’s best events...to me it’s the best venue in Tassie and it will become an attractive gig for artists. This is not a case of little old Tassie batting above its weight it’s an event where the acts will want to play Skyfields.
“When Bruce Springsteen comes to Australia touring why not come to Skyfields and the Foo Fighters, the Rolling Stones and Ed Sheeran.
“We’ve got another two shows to do with Australian artists in collaboration with the TSO and we will go to international acts when we feel we are ready.
“We aim to do two summer shows in December and February every year.”
Sykes said a handful of international people and over 100 from interstate, plus many from other parts of Tasmania came to the first Skyfields gig.
“We’re bringing people to this part of Tasmania,” he said.