Around 7500 people are expected at the event which will feature metal, punk, rock and alternative artists across more than 20 hours of performances including a fireworks at midnight on New Year's Eve.

Promoter Chris O'Brien said after a frustrating 18 months of music festival and tour cancellations it was exciting to launch a new event and provide an opportunity for artists to perform and fans to get their fill of live music.

The line-up for the festival, which is being launched today, includes headline act metalcore band Parkway Drive from Byron Bay who have performed at European and UK music festivals to more than 100,000 people and packed out arena shows.

The lineup also includes: Alex Lahey, Bakers Eddy, Clowns, Diamond Construct, Hellions (Performing 'Opera Oblivia' in full), Justice For The Damned, Make Them Suffer, Paperweight, Saviour, Terra, The Beautiful Monument, The Chats, The Getaway Plan (Performing 'Other Voices, Other Rooms in full), The Gloom In The Corner, To The Grave, Trophy Eyes, Void Of Vision and Windwaker.

The festival is also expected to be a massive bolster for accommodation providers across Moorabool and Ballarat, with most fans expected to stay in the region at least two nights and organisers hoping many will stay longer.

A fleet of buses will ferry festival-goers to and from Kryal Castle with DJs continuing to spin tunes after the bands end each night to keep the party going for those waiting for their bus ride back to their accommodation.

"We are taking over the castle, will put a huge stage in the jousting arena and get some of the biggest bands from around the country to play," Mr O'Brien said.

"We run music festivals we bring out international bands as a touring company but because of COVID we had to pivot and because we can't bring bands in to the country we've started creating domestic music festivals."

Mr O'Brien said Kryal Castle approached them several months ago with the idea and he was immediately interested, having visited the castle as a child.

In addition to the main stage there will be smaller acoustic performances in Kryal Castle's Jester Theatre and its chapel, and there will be roving medieval entertainment throughout the festival.

Performances are scheduled to start at 1pm each day.

Mr O'Brien said he was hopeful the festival would go ahead with few COVID restrictions.

"We still don't have a roadmap on when we can actually get out of this and put major events on but we are still planning and hoping. We are hopeful that by New Year's Eve enough people will be vaccinated and we'll be in business - there's no better way to ring in the new year and start 2022 with a bang and some fireworks."

Mr O'Brien described the past 18 months as "brutal".

"When the pandemic hit we ran management as well so we were bringing acts home from Europe within 24 hours. Back then we didn't really know what was going on so we rescheduled a lot of our tours for later in 2020, then a few months went by and we realised that wasn't going to happen so we ended up rescheduling tours and festivals multiple times.

IN OTHER NEWS

"It's absolutely devastated the industry from top to bottom."

Knight and Day will be an 18+ fully-licensed event bars throughout the castle, food trucks and market stalls.

"We just want it to be a fun experience. People have been through the wringer and we just want to create something really fun, super exciting and just give people a reason to be happy going in to next year."

Our team of local journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the Ballarat community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: