Wirrina 2025

The next Wirrina festival dates are
Friday 21 to Sunday 23 November.

Pop it in your calendar!

2025 performance applications

Applications to perform at the 2025 Festival are closing on Anzac Day—April 25.

Please send an email  to wirrinabluegrass@gmail.com with your application to play as soon as possible before this date. If you’re a Bluegrass or Acoustic Roots performer please send us whatever you think we need to know about you! (For example, a short bio, links to a sound bite/video.)

Wirrina Music Camp 2025

The Wirrina Music Camp for stringed instruments is happening again in 2025.
Details here

Sponsorship

Ever wondered how a festival pays for itself? In the case of Wirrina Bluegrass & Acoustic Roots Festival, ticket sales cover the unavoidable administration costs and payments for performing artists —and these are more of a ‘honorarium’ plus travel and accommodation. Longer term, we’d like to attract somewhat larger audiences and be able to pay closer to their actual worth. The marquees, a major infrastructure cost, are sponsored by Wirrina Cove Holiday Park. The Young Musicians’ Award began because a festival supporter organised grant funding. That funding will run out after this year.

We all love this festival, its particular focus and format and we’d like to expand what is on offer. An example is our addition of the bush dance; there are possibilities of separate concept presentations/workshops being offered to us. These would add depth to our festival. But how do we fund these when we are already stretched to the limit? We are hoping there are people in our festival community that would like to make these ‘extra-curricular’ activities happen and keep happening. The cost is generally around $500 to $1500 per activity. An activity sponsorship could be financed by one or more people and sponsors can choose to be named in the program or remain anonymous. If you are interested in being involved in this way, please contact us.

We are always open to new constructive ideas to improve our festival both in enjoyment and sustainability and the best way to make contact is by emailing us at wirrinabluegrass@gmail.com

Performers 2025

More performers booked! It’s still a work in progress but we can now announce a few more of the wonderful musicians who will play at Wirrina this year.

The Lofty Mountain Band

The Lofty Mountain Band are an exhilarating conference of things with strings playing a breakneck fusion of pop, country and folk. Fronted by prolific, Adelaide raconteur, Max Savage  the band plays catchy, hook-based pop songs with bluegrass instrumentation. And what a line up they are! Formed in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the band have built up a solid following in their home state playing a string of sold-out shows in regional and metropolitan South Australia over the past few years. With an intoxicating blend of tight vocal harmonies, virtuosic playing, yearning, wit and melancholy, their music is ethereal and grounded, often devastating and occasionally transcendent. Their performance promises to be exciting—be sure to be there!

The Weeping Willows

You may have had the luck to see/hear Andrew Wrigglesworth and Laura Coates play in SA from time to time since 2012, but this is their first time at Wirrina! Yours truly is a big fan and I can’t wait to see them live again. After six years, the Melbourne alt-country duo, are celebrating the release of their long-awaited third studio album, You Reap What You Sow .  In the years in between, they’ve picked up a substantial collection of prestigious awards and toured in the USA. When I first came across them over a decade ago they were relatively unknown but those days are gone and they are now receiving the recognition they so deserve. Andrew’s stunning guitar work and Laura’s voice are a winning combination. We are very lucky that their journey is bringing them to Wirrina!

Paula Standing

Local SA songstress, Paula Standing, will no doubt delight Wirrina audiences with her performance. Paula is an established favourite amongst the Australian contemporary indie roots scene, where wry humour and warmth are as much a part of the show as her impressive vocal range and guitar combo. The poetry in her heartfelt songwriting is just beautiful—listen closely. Paula’s song ‘Ordinarily’ has recently been voted as a finalist in the World Songwriting Awards—for best modern country song. Go Paula! Maybe she’ll play it for us at Wirrina…? 

Jeri Foreman and Grace Honeywell

Jeri Foreman and Grace Honeywell will join us from Glasgow at Wirrina this November. Long -time Wirrina festival attendees will likely remember Jerri and her fiddle playing from earlier festivals —playing with Astro Cobalt and Andrew Clermont’s Supper Club shows. She was substantially involved in SA’s Folk, Bluegrass and modern string music for many years before moving to Scotland. Grace joins her with acclaimed expertise in fiddle, guitar and songwriting. Both have a solid teaching reputation with adults and youth, as well as impressive performance histories.

Watershed Stringband

Cat & Clint join Dave & Wendy from The Cartwheels, to form Watershed Stringband — featuring red-hot fiddle and banjo, dreamy vocal harmonies, snappy guitar pickin’ and juicy double bass. This all-star lineup bring a unique blend of vintage country from driving bluegrass and old time dance tunes to western swing and Australiana.

Crooked Road

Festival darlings, the fella’s from Crooked Road, are back to wow us with their stellar sting playing, impeccable harmonies, and exhilarating Bluegrass arrangements. As we’ve said before, these guys are Bluegrass royalty at Wirrina and we can’t get enough of them!