Lachie Hayes Joins Oyster Festival Line up

Top Southland entertainer, Lachie Hayes, is the latest performer to be confirmed for the 2024 Bluff Oyster & Food Festival on Saturday 25 May.

“I am really grateful to be performing at the Oyster Fest again this year. I have always loved the vibe of the festival and of course the kaimoana. I will be performing with some amazing musicians helping me out and that is going to be a heap of fun, and hopefully I will get a chance to catch up with a few Bluffies I haven’t seen in a while,” says Hayes, the 2018 Southland Entertainer Of The Year.

Entertainment co-ordinator for the Festival, Rosi Coyle-Smith says, “Lachie is the pinnacle of Southland talent”, while one of New Zealand’s most esteemed singer, songwriters, Adam McGrath of The Eastern, who performed at the Festival in 2015, has described Hayes as “probably the South Island’s greatest, pound for pound, singer and songwriter”.

Family influence is what set Lachie down his musical pathway – in a very nice touch his father Steven was the Southland Entertainer Of The Year two years before Lachie achieved the same accolade

From the Catlins, Lachie plays a mix of folk and blues and takes inspiration from the likes of Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson.

He is currently working on a new full-length album due to be released later this year which will be recorded at the MASSAV Studio in Invercargill.

The 2024 Bluff Oyster & Food Festival will take place in Bluff on Saturday 25 May at the Bluff Oyster & Food Festival site in Lee Street.

Gates open at 10.30am at the popular event with the iconic Bluff Oysters plus a smorgasbord of other seafood treats plus other food offerings and beverages available.

The music stage will feature a full day of musical entertainment while elsewhere on the site the popular Oyster Opening and Eating races take place.

Since it was announced only in March that the 2024 Festival would be proceeding, the Festival Committee have been working extremely hard to bring together another successful event as they prepare for their first Festival since 2021.