The team behind the Birdsville Big Red Bash have announced plans to stage the world’s biggest ‘Nutbush’ dance at this year’s festival, paying tribute to the late Tina Turner.
In a press release, it’s explained that organisers hope to unite 5,000 concertgoers to partake in the attempt – which will be adjudicated by the Australian Book of Records – beating the previous record of 4,084. That itself was set as last year’s Big Red Bash, while the record before it (spanning 2,878 dancers) was set at the festival’s 2021 edition.
The attempt will be held on the last day of this year’s event, Thursday July 6. Explaining his ambitions for it, Steve Donovan (operations manager for the Outback Music Festival Group, who stage the Birdsville Big Red Bash and Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash) said: “[Turner] was an incredible performer and her ‘Nutbush City Limits’ song and associated world record attempt is a huge, fun part of our events.
“We always get quite a few people dressed up as Tina for the ‘Nutbush’ world record attempt, but we’re now expecting even more this year. She was so well loved and it’s always an amazing call to action when her ‘Nutbush’ song is played out across the festival sites and thousands of boot scooters came together to dance their way into a new world record.
“Our Mundi Mundi Bash Mad Max Dress up in August is also sure to have a huge representation of Tina’s iconic Mad Max look. I’m sure she would have been proud that the ‘Nutbush’ raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Royal Flying Doctors, and that this legacy will live on.”
The 2023 Big Red Bash will be held over July 4-6 at its usual home of Queensland’s Simpson Desert. Performing acts will include bands like Icehouse, Hoodoo Gurus, Human Nature The Angels, The Waifs, Dragon and the Pierce Brothers, as well as solo artists like Pete Murray, Kate Ceberano and Troy Cassar-Daley.
Turner’s passing was confirmed on Wednesday this week (May 24), with a representative of the iconic multi-hyphenate saying she “died peacefully” after enduring “a long illness”. Thousands of tributes have since rolled in, with notable odes coming from the likes of Beyoncé, Coldplay, Angela Bassett and Cher.
Also notable was a tribute made by staff at the US Embassy in Canberra, performing their own rendition of the ‘Nutbush’ dance.