David Dallas performs at Homegrown in Hamilton. Photo / Tom Eley
With blue skies and the smell of food trucks drifting across the grounds, thousands packed into Hamilton on Saturday as Jim Beam Homegrown found a new home for the first time in its nearly two-decade history.
From early afternoon, the crowd thickened, friends staking out spots on the grass and drifting between stages as music rolled across the site.
By nightfall the venue was heaving, a home crowd enjoying the hospitality and a line-up stacked with some of Aotearoa’s best-known acts.
For many, it felt like a road trip worth making.
The festival first launched on Wellington’s waterfront in 2008 and built a reputation as one of New Zealand’s biggest celebrations of local music.
After more than 15 years in the capital, organisers shifted the event to Hamilton this year, bringing the multi-stage festival to a new audience.
Among those making the journey were Kurt and Rebecca Shirley, who travelled from Te Awamutu for the festival’s first Hamilton edition.
Others had come from further afield. Samantha Rompf, visiting from Queenstown, said she enjoyed her time in Hamilton as music flowed across the stages throughout the day.
Across the festival site, crowds moved between stages as sets from David Dallas, The Datsuns, The Jordan Luck Band, Fly My Pretties and Six60 drew strong audiences.
Some festival-goers said they stumbled across acts they did not know. While the music was not always to their usual taste, several admitted they still found themselves nodding along as they explored the different stages.
Performers also welcomed the chance to play in the city.
“We haven’t been playing Hamilton for a while, so that’s cool,” Barnaby Weir, co-founder of Fly My Pretties, said.
Weir said the band’s show offered “a lot of variety and challenge”.
“Good grooves and good basslines. It’s a good show.”
He said the visual element was also a key part of the performance.
“There’s the heritage factor as well, the legacy factor of the visuals. It’s quite strong on the artistic side.”
Headliners Six60 drew one of the biggest crowds of the night with a full stadium-style production.
Ji Fraser from Six60 said seeing the Hamilton venue set up ahead of the show highlighted the scale of the event.
“In Wellington, it was kind of spread out in different bits and pieces along the waterfront, but here it’s all in one area and the scale of it really hits you.”
Fraser said large festivals had become harder to stage in recent years.
With major events like The Big Day Out no longer running in New Zealand, he said it was encouraging to see a major local music festival continuing.
“You don’t see them as much anymore. The cost of everything and the nature of the business make it harder to pull these things together. So it’s cool to be down there and see a big New Zealand festival in action again.”
Hamilton Mayor Tim Macindoe was also among those enjoying the festival and said the day had been “absolutely fantastic”.
“It’s exceeded my expectations. I had high hopes, and I’m loving the atmosphere. The music has been great, and the crowd are loving it.”
He particularly enjoyed the set from The Jordan Luck Band, which included a few classic Exponents songs and had him dancing with the crowd.
Macindoe said it was encouraging to see strong audiences across the festival site.
“It’s good to see good crowds in front of just about every stage, so they’re all attracting their audiences.”
He said it would take time to understand the full economic impact of the event, but the early signs were positive.
“We won’t know for some time exactly what impact it has had on retail and hospitality, but we do know that all the major accommodation providers have been booked out for some time.”
Even smaller accommodation providers appeared to be full.
“I would hope that by now, even smaller Airbnbs and smaller hotels out on the periphery are booked out,” Macindoe said.
“I’m off to another function at the moment, and the host has told me his guests coming from outside haven’t been able to get accommodation because everything was booked out.
“So it has to be good.”
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.