Beat the winter blues

THE ECHUCA MOAMA WINTER BLUES FESTIVAL HAS BEEN BRINGING THE TWIN TOWNS ALIVE FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS WITH THE BEST LOCAL AND NATIONAL MUSIC ACTS.

Sprawled across 20-plus venues, the festival will feature the cream of the Australian blues music scene on the last weekend in July.

Winter Blues committee member Paul Jarman has participated in the festival for 13 years and said it was “absolutely the best weekend in Echuca”.

“It is a free festival that in excess of 15,000 people come to our community every year which makes Echuca this amazing place in the middle of winter,” Paul said.

“People wandering from venue to venue, hotel to hotel, restaurant to restaurant and walking around our town, that creates this really unique experience in Echuca, one weekend a year.”

Originally started by a group of shopkeepers to create an event in the quietest time of the year, the festival has grown from humble beginnings as a one-day event in a pub with a couple of bands to the multi-venue, multi-day event we have today.

Over the four days of the Winter Blues festival, more than 130 acts will perform in a range of venues including free outdoor spaces.

A highlight of 2023 will be the infectious riff and groove based blue-billy-grass-rockin’-roots band 19-twenty.

The powerhouse trio has been whipping up a frenzy on the festival scene in Australia and throughout Europe.

“Even if you are not into the blues, the music, the weekend is so much fun,” Paul said.

“It is really unique in music festivals, as this is not a big music festival that sits in a paddock, this is a music festival in the centre of our town, for you to just wander the weekend picking out who you want to listen to.

“Most people say how amazing it is.

“The visitors that come to our town that weekend keep coming back year after year, which is a fantastic endorsement of how great the festival is.

“Because of the lead time to book the accommodation, now is the time to do it, because like most people, when you buy a festival ticket, there’s quite often five or six months before you go in to see the performance.

“You will need to book your accommodation early because it books out around the town for the festival weekend.

“We have so much great variety of accommodation from high quality hotels to B&Bs through to caravan parks.”

Echuca Moama Winter Blues runs from Thursday, July 27 to Sunday, July 30.

For more information, including how to get around the event and a full rundown of who is playing where and when, visit: winterblues.com.au/