One Night Stand is an annual music festival held in various regional Australian cities and towns that is promoted and organised by national youth radio station Triple J. The event ran for 15 years from its debut in 2004 until 2019, with one break in 2015 for Triple J's 30th anniversary Beat the Drum event. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented any large-scale music festivals in 2020 and 2021, yet the One Night Stand did not return once restrictions on major events were lifted. After a spate of cancellations of major Australian music festivals, the return of the festival was announced by Triple J on the 8th of April 2024.[1][2] One Night Stand returned to Warrnambool, Victoria on 14 September 2024.[3][4]
In the early years of the One Night Stand, the host town was selected in the form of a competition where residents of the town had to gain approval from their local government as well as find a suitable venue. Triple J would arranges the artists to perform – usually four to five high-profile Australian bands of a variety of genres, alongside a local band that had uploaded their music to Triple J Unearthed. Entry to the festival was free for all ages, and the One Night Stand was specifically marketed as a drug and alcohol-free event. Attendance peaked in the festival's final years, with crowd estimates for the 2018 event in St Helens, Tasmania reaching a capacity of 20,000 (in a town of approximately 2,000 people), with a further 2,000-plus revellers locked out.
History
The concept of the One Night Stand was the brainchild of Triple J's then-marketing manager Louis Rogers, with the intention of raising the awareness and relevance of the radio station in regional communities. Backed by special funding from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the first event was held in Natimuk, Victoria on Wednesday 28 July 2004 and featured acts such as Grinspoon, The Dissociatives, Koolism and Eskimo Joe. The location was chosen from a pool of submissions sent to the station, which required entrances to produce a letter from their town's mayor, permission from a venue, a petition, and a souvenir. The Natimuk organising committee submitted a petition of 3,000 names, considerably more than the town's population of approximately 500. They also raised $30,000 in pledges from local businesses to support the event.[5]
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987.