Music and Other Events

Music and More Calendar

Verandah Folk Club
Details & Tickets
Sunday 16
February
2025

With Ian Bland & Greg Hunt, Cate Taylor and Amla, Valley Road, and open mic.

Burke & Wills
Folk Festival
Details & Tickets
7 - 10
March
2025

Burke & Wills Folk Festival.
Here at the winery, more info on this page.

Please note that we no longer allow dogs to our events at the winery, including the camping area.

Purchases of tickets to our events are now via Humanitix. Refunds are available for tickets cancelled up until 7 days before the event (for cancellations use “Manage Order” on the ticket).

For more information about concerts please see our current newsletter.

More about the Burke & Wills Folk Festival below.

This will be the FINAL March B&WFF.
The 2025 line up includes Gina Jeffreys, Rod McCormack and James Gillard, Matt Joe Gow, Jen Lush, Peter Daffy and Rhiz & The Sugarplums, Paul Wookey, Bernard Carney, We Mavericks and many more….
It will be the final of this format in March because of the pressures of climate change on wine vintage time. So it will be a big one! Please join us.

Here is the 2025 programme as of 28th January, subject to change of course.

Held here at our Winery each year, you become Andrew and Heathers guests for the weekend!

This is one of the world’s smallest folk festivals, and is more like a private garden party with almost non-stop music and entertainment than a 'festival' per se.

The event is held on the Labour Day weekend every March and usually attracts a full house of around 150 people.  Consequently booking is initially by invitation, which means that priority is given to people who have attended before, and their friends, and if all tickets are not taken by the end of November it is then opened up to anyone.

Despite the small size of the event the performers are mostly of international calibre and repute, and much of the audience are former Port Fairy Folk Festival attendees who now prefer the smaller and more intimate space of the Burke & Wills Folk Festival, where they can be up close and personal with great performers, and really enjoy the social side of the event too.

Basic camping and decent showers and toilets. But this does need to be pre-booked, and may book out, so that we don’t overflow. Some local B&B accommodation can also be found, and day tickets are also available.

2025 Festival tickets are $225, and day tickets $70, Friday evening $45, and there is no charge for camping, but we do ask campers to take their rubbish home with them where possible.

No dogs please at any of our events (including the camping ground.)

Enquiries: ph (03) 5425 5400, email: wineandmusic@bigpond.com

Andrew Pattison's Wine and Music background.....

Andrew Pattison and a mate left England in an old London taxi in 1973 and drove overland towards Australia for what was planned to be a two year adventure. But Andrew stayed in Australia, first working on a wheat farm in Western Australia, then heading to visit friends in Melbourne, and soon after starting a mobile discotheque, as a way to earn a living without having to face the boss every morning.

As an antidote to the disco music Andrew and a couple of friends opened a late night folk music coffee lounge in South Melbourne called The Troubadour in 1978, presenting the best of Melbourne's singer songwriters and contemporary folk artists. The venue had an emphasis on listening, not talking, during the performances, and consequently quickly gained a reputation as a great place to perform and soon the top names in Australia's acoustic music scene were appearing there regularly, people like Doug Ashdown, Mike McClellan, Ross Ryan, Margret Roadknight and many others.

The venue moved to a slightly larger space in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in 1982, a move which opened it up to presenting international performers, - Jesse Winchester, Mickey Newbury, John Hammond, Tom Paxton, Peter Sarstedt, to mention only a few. A memorable night was one when John Denver walked in on an 'open stage' evening and asked if he could play, staying on to perform an hour long concert set.

Andrew and his then wife Ann finally decided they had taken the venue as far as they could, and a desire to live in the country saw them buy a small vineyard and open Lancefield Winery in 1986, and soon after they sold The Troubadour, but kept the music interest alive by putting on a concert with a spit roast lunch every Sunday at the winery. And Andrew continued to be involved in touring international acts around Australia.

The original Troubadour venue finally closed in 1990, but Andrew kept his connection with it by running a 'pop up' version, The Troubadour Wine Bar, in a marquee at major folk festivals for the best part of twenty years, starting in 1992 at Port Fairy Folk Festival, and then adding Maleny (now Woodford) and The National Folk Festivals, and later The Maldon Folk Festival and Newstead Live!

Andrew still runs his own mini-festival, The Burke & Wills Folk Festival, at his Burke & Wills Winery every March. The Winery also presents occasional intimate summer concerts with top national and international performers. Over the years these have included not only the cream of Australia's singer songwriters and country folk artists but also top international musicians including Guy Clark, John Hammond, Tom Rush, Albert Lee and Vince Gill, Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Rambling Jack Elliott, Jimmy Webb, Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen, Mickey Newbury, Dougie MacLean, Danny O'Keefe, Chris Smither, Vin Garbutt, Josh White Jr. and many others.

Wine and music turned out to be a very good pairing!

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