Awesome New Aussie Lost Picnic Festival Offers More Than Just Music

While 2013 may have been characterised by many of the large-scale Aussie festivals having a tough year, including the cancellation of several big name players, 2014 may well come to be known as the year the boutique music festival flourished.

Following just days after news that the New South Wales Central Coast is getting the brand new Mountain Sounds Festival this March, now arrives word that the same month will see the launch of another boutique bash, billed as “the music and food event Sydney has been waiting for.”

Titled Lost Picnic, the organisers of this latest addition to the music events calendar promise a bohemian experience, the chance to “stretch out with a gourmet food hamper or dance barefoot on the grass to Australia’s finest musicians” amongst the gorgeous surrounds of the Loch Avenue South Area at Sydney’s Centennial Park on Sunday 23rd March.

Providing the soundtrack in the lush Pine Grove setting on the inaugural Lost Picnic 2014 lineup will be popular Aussie singer-songwriter Megan Washington, who will likely showcase the new material she’s been busy working on for the follow-up to her ARIA-winning debut album, as well as the equally successful outfit, The Rubens. The five-piece have been touring their swaggering soul rock pretty hard in the last 12 months resulting in their self-titled debut going Platinum in December.

Also playing the first-ever Lost Picnic will be award-winning Queensland singer-songwriter Emma Louise, rising indie folk singer-songwriter (and Triple J Next Crop 2014 pick) Dustin Tebbutt, and indie folk three-piece Sons of the East. “Lost Picnic is exactly that, a boutique-style event that not only supports local musical talent but local restaurants…”

Along with enjoying the all-Aussie bill, Lost Picnic will also live up to its name, offering punters a delicious selection of gourmet picnic hampers filled with culinary delights created in collaboration with local restaurants and celebrated food maestros to “[break] the mould of traditional festival style food.

Chef Martin Boetz and The Keystone Group offer the Rushcutters hamper, with Northern European inspired nibbles, locally sourced produce, and delicious sweets. The Icebergs hamper, is named after the eatery of the same name and presented by Maurice Terzini, with a set of delicious salads, breads, and more (head here to drool over the full hamper selection).

First release tickets for Lost Picnic clock in at $89 and the gourmet hampers (serving 2-3 people) cost an additional $69 and available from the 15th January 2014.

Lost Picnic is the brainchild of Simon Beckingham and Wade Cawood, who each got their starts in the electronic industry before moving into organising acclaimed events across Sydney, while Beckingham is also a part owner of Bondi restaurant Panama House, as well as helping co-ordinate fellow venue, The Corner House, which also set up The Garden Bar on-site at Lost Picnic.

“We’ve grown up organising successful dance events in Sydney and although this will always be a passion of ours, we have evolved and we want our events to evolve with us,” says Beckingham.

“Growing up in the UK festival scene, we know Sydney is looking for the next generation in music events. Lost Picnic is exactly that, a boutique-style event that not only supports local musical talent but local restaurants, to offer a completely different experience to the Sydney entertainment calendar.”

Lost Picnic is the latest in a growing wave of new boutique Aussie music festivals. While some established events are already achieving successful sustainability – including Boogie, Festival Of The Sun, The Gum Ball, River Boats, The Hills Are Alive, Secret Garden (just to name a few) – in recent months, even more have sprung up all over the country.

There was the December debut of Groovin’ The Moo spinoff festival, The Plot in Sydney and Melbourne, while Victoria also got the Paradise Music Festival late last year. Cronulla’s inaugural Endless Summer Festival enjoyed a huge launch, to the tune of 50,000 attendees, while Tasmania is being gifted with Panama, a camping festival in a forest, this March, just as the first-ever Mountain Sounds Festival launches on the Central Coast.