WOMADelaide have announced the first performers for next year’s festival, confirming Bon Iver and Florence + The Machine as headliners, alongside the return of a display from theatrical French art collective Gratte Ciel.
Both headline acts will appear on the back of their own tours; Bon Iver’s run was also announced this morning (August 24), and will include headline shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane alongside sets at next year’s Mona Foma and Perth Festival. Florence + The Machine announced their Australian ‘Dance Fever’ tour back in May, with shows in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane slated for next March.
WOMADelaide 2023 will run across the long weekend of Friday March 10 through Monday 13, and will be held at its usual home of Adelaide’s Botanic Park/Tainmuntilla. Its website notes that over 60 acts will be confirmed over the coming months – in the meantime, we know that Bon Iver will lead the fray on the festival’s first night, with Florence Welch and co. set to perform on the Saturday (March 11).
Gratte Ciel will deliver their performance – a combination of visual spectacle, live music and acrobatics – across all four nights. The acclaimed French troupe last performed at the 2018 iteration of WOMADelaide, spurring minor controversy when they unleashed thousands of real duck feathers into the crowd.
Tickets for WOMADelaide will be sold in four stages, with the first – an “Early Bird” release, which is exclusively open to subscribers of the festival’s mailing list – set to begin at 9am this Friday (August 26) and run until midnight on Thursday September 8. See more details here.
This year’s WOMADelaide – its 30th edition – featured over 40 performing acts, including the likes of Paul Kelly, Baker Boy, Electric Fields, King Stingray, Haiku Hands, Springtime, Jerome Farah and The Cat Empire. The festival also featured a cameo-packed appearance from A.B. Original, whose set saw them bring out Courtney Barnett, Mo’Ju, Thelma Plum, Birdz and Fred Leone.