Local Produce to Feature at Auckland Big Day Out

Local Produce to Feature at Auckland Big Day Out

The Boost Mobile Local Produce stage is a new feature at Auckland’s Big Day Out on 20 January. This is the first time a stage has been exclusively dedicated to New Zealand acts, more of which will be known in the second announcement, set for next Wednesday 16th November.

Auckland Big Day Out promoter Campbell Smith announced the new stage to neighbours last weekend while taking a break from knocking it up in his backyard from old beer crates and a tarpaulin his father had picked up in the Avondale inorganic collection.

Putting down his hammer and leaning over his fence, Smith bellowed in the general direction of some kids playing in the dirt, “It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve just built the biggest stage there has ever been for local acts at the Big Day Out.”

That’s a complete lie of course. But, sturdy of structure and measuring a healthy four metres by six metres, the Boost Mobile Local Produce stage will showcase a great variety of purely NZ artists at the 2006 Big Day Out.

Over the past couple of years, the fifth stage has been given over exclusively to hip-hop but the change for 2006 reflects both the maturing stature of hip-hop and also the explosion in exciting new rock acts on the local scene.

“We’re not consigning hip-hop to one corner of the Big Day Out and this is enabling us to get the mix just right on every stage throughout the day,” says Smith.

“The Big Day Out has always been about giving people the chance to discover something new and the Boost Mobile Local Produce stage is a key part of that. We can throw some exciting new acts in there that hopefully will be bigger names in the future.

“We have already announced Frontline as one of our local artist headliners. They made their debut on the hip-hop stage a few years back. We’ll see more acts from more genres following that path from the Boost Mobile Local Produce Stage.”

Asked whether the Boost Mobile Local Produce Stage was a jingoistic statement intended to put Australians off from coming to the Auckland’s Big Day Out following the recent sell-out of the Sydney event, Smith initially declined to comment, paused for thought and then launched into the following tirade:

“I have built the Boost Mobile Local Produce Stage with my own hands. New Zealand market gardeners have been growing cabbages in our nation’s fertile soil for decades, and before that, there were kumara. Australian hothouse tomatoes have no pips. Sometimes I am in the supermarket and their oranges aren’t even orange.”

Sometimes we can’t understand what he’s on about either.

ENDS

© Scoop Media