Wollongong’s Yours & Owls Festival will return in 2023 with a new home: the University of Wollongong. Festival founders Ben Tillman, Adam Smith and Baluun Jones – all of whom are UOW alumni – have inked a three-year partnership deal with the university to host the event.The first of these will run across the weekend of Saturday, 14th and Sunday, 15th October this year.
As part of the deal, the Yours & Owls team will take over the UOW campus for the festival, with the festival’s grounds, ovals and laneways being utilised. “We are delighted to be returning home to UOW to present Yours and Owls within the campus grounds,” Tillman said in a statement. “We are excited to welcome patrons to experience the festival in the space where the initial idea was hatched all those years ago. Our team have been busy creating ways to bring the multitude of spaces available to us alive across the campus.”
Yours & Owls 2023 Will Take Place in October
University of Wollongong Vice-Chancellor and President Patricia M. Davidson said the university had “watched in awe” as the Yours & Owls team “have changed the cultural and creative landscape of Wollongong over the past ten years.” Davidson continued: “The relationship between Yours and Owls and UOW is a natural fit for us. It is a chance for us to showcase the beauty of our campus, to encourage the community to have fun and enjoy some of the best live music around in a safe and relaxed setting.”
The permanence of University of Wollongong’s infrastructure, festival operators hope, will ensure a seamless experience for punters moving through the site, with less wastage and assistance with the festival and university’s goals of carbon emission reduction.
University of Wollongong also provides several all-weather solutions, ensuring Yours & Owls is better able to deal with all possible weather conditions. Last year, Yours & Owls Festival was cancelled just days before it was due to commence, with extreme flooding making its former Stuart Park site unable to be used. The festival last took place in 2020.
There’s no official word on the lineup for this year’s edition of Yours & Owls just yet, but the site and date announcement video above is soundtracked by EKKSTACY‘s ‘i walk this earth all by myself’. The Canadian singer-songwriter will be in the country around that time (appearing as part of the inaugural SXSW Sydney) so outlook looks good. As for the rest of the lineup, that’s set to arrive soon.
Further Reading
This Weekend’s Yours & Owls Festival Has Been Cancelled Due To Flooding
Wollongong Scores New Live Music Venue La La La’s, Thanks To Yours & Owls
