Is the Snow Machine Festival Queenstown's best festival? Photo / Patrick Stevenson
Snow Machine Festival is a six-day music, snow and apres-ski jamboree in Queenstown, complete with four en-piste day stages and a Main Arena in Queenstown itself. By night, QT’s hottest bars host official after-parties and for 2024, The Winery Arena at Ayrburn makes its debut.
With the September 3-8 festival currently in full flow, we chat to its co-owner Quentin Nolan about the event’s success, its Japanese counterpart and what we can expect from this year’s line-up and beyond.
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When did the Snow Machine Festival start and how did it come to be?
We had our first Snow Machine event in 2020 in Hakuba, Japan. Since then, and aside from the “false start” during Covid, we’ve done one in Queenstown in 2022, and again in 2023. We also enjoyed another Japan-based festival in March this year back in Hokuba. Now we’re in the midst of our fifth event here in Queenstown, which runs September 3-8.
What’s the link to Japan?
My background is in travel, and I’ve got a number of hotels and hospitality businesses in Japan. The event came about in order to give people a reason to travel over there (and also to Queenstown) during the shoulder season, when business was starting to drop off. We identified that by putting on this type of festival, we would be able to bring more people to Japan and Queenstown that might not have gone otherwise.
How has the festival grown?
For our first year in Queenstown, we had about 5000 people attend, and this year we’ve got about 7500 festival-goers. It’s been really good to keep those solid numbers, especially because this year, the winter season in Queensland has been a bit quieter than previous years. All the businesses love it because it’s really injecting a lot of customers and income into the town. Over the course of this week, we expect it to bring in around $20 million to Queenstown, which is great because it’s still recovering from Covid. To put that back into the town is something we’re really proud of.
Among many things, taking in Queenstown’s natural beauty while munching a cookie from the Cookie Time Cookie Bar is a favourite pastime!
I think it’s because we’ve put together a music event combined with skiing and snowboarding, as well as everything that Queenstown offers. It’s turned it into a week-long destination event where people are coming to an awesome part of the world. There’s a lot more to it than what you’d get at a one-day music festival and there’s also more to it than a simple ski holiday. It’s giving you a lot of bang for your buck. Festival-goers can come and have an awesome time - and tick off several must-do activities and must-see musicians, as well as go skiing and snowboarding.
In addition, a lot of people attend once and come back time and time again, bringing more friends with them, or they’ve told a lot of people about the festival, and from there it’s really snowballed.
What type of festival-goer does the Snow Machine Festival attract?
We do get a broad range of attendees. Our average festival-goer would be about 25 to 35 years of age. It’s not targeted at a super young group of people because it is a bit more expensive than your normal festival. We book acts that we think will appeal to those in the 25-40 demographic and it’s definitely geared towards groups of friends.
Tell us about the new day-time hub: The Winery Arena at Ayrburn
We’ve got two stages at each mountain throughout the day; Coronet Peak and the Remarkables, and then this year, for the first time, we’ve got a new stage out at Ayrburn, which is a beautiful new Queenstown winery. The idea was to showcase a bit more of what Queenstown has to offer and to give visitors another option. If people have been skiing for three or four days and they want to have a bit of a break, they can come out to the winery. It’s a bit more chill. You can listen to some music, have a glass of wine. It’s a good day.
We also find for about 50% of our customers, it’s their first time experiencing the snow and it can be pretty strenuous. So if people have had enough of it, there’s something else to do.
What are you most looking forward to about this year’s festival?
I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the acts that we’ve got booked, including Angus & Julia Stone, Ladyhawke, Drax Project and Matt Corby. And then I’m looking forward to Ayrburn as well. We’ve got a couple of events out at Ayrburn, including some long lunches and a drag brunch, which should be a bit of fun. I’m also looking forward to getting up the mountain and seeing the mountain stages.
I am looking forward to the Drag Brunch at Ayrburn Winery, I’ve heard it’s beautiful there and I Iove drag. I’m also taking my daughter to see the snow for the first time. I want to take her on the gondola and luge.
What’s something most people don’t know about the Snow Machine Festival?
One of the good things that people may not know is that we do the event in Japan as well, at the opposite time of the year. That means travellers going over to Japan can tie in the food and the culture, plus the musicians and some of the best snow in the world. We also get quite a few people that attend both events - and some people who have attended every Snow Machine Festival we’ve ever run.
What makes Queenstown such a great destination for it?
It’s everything Queensland has to offer; all the adventure activities, the restaurants, the great bars. Plus all the other experiences you can do, and we try and tie in as much of this into the event as we can. For example, last night we had a pre-party out at the bungy bridge with musicians, and people bungy jumping off the bridge.
There’s no destination like Queenstown in the world. It’s such an action-packed week. It’s got something for everyone even if you’re not a huge adrenaline junkie, there are plenty of other good activities you can go and do.
Any future plans you can spill the beans on?
We always have a few new surprises out at our main arena. This year we’ve got a little Japanese bar for 10 or 12 people, and it’s got a fireplace, Japanese beers on tap and a DJ. We also have an inflatable church with somebody DJ-ing, which is pretty cool. We’ll definitely have some new activations and some new ideas for next year, but you’ll have to come down and see it for yourself.
For more information on all Snow Machine Festivals, including this year’s Queenstown line-up and the Japan 2025 event in March, visit snow-machine.com
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