Thousands were drawn to the Illawarra over the past four days for a celebration of all things art, technology and music with 13 events brought together under the umbrella of the Blender Festival.
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Surf films, skate-boarding competitions, art workshops, and photography exhibitions were scattered amongst the bigger Wonderwalls street art project and Yours and Owls music festival.
Year one definitely saw the spark, we’ve just got to keep on adding more timber.
- Blender festival director Ben Perry
Blender festival director Ben Perry said he was stoked thousands hit the Crown Street Mall and Globe Lane for the opening Thursday night, with so much further support throughout the weekend.
“If a community doesn’t get behind these events they die,” he said. “Year one definitely saw the spark, we’ve just got to keep on adding more timber.”
In coming weeks the major forces behind Blender will come together to invite any community groups, businesses or other organisations to get involved in 2016.
“All the people are there, we’ve just got to find them and bring them together,” said Mr Perry.
He said when you help a collective of people who want to create, inspire and engage with others, to turn their ideas into something “that’s when the magic will happen”.
“We don’t just want this to be a local Illawarra festival - you can make them any day,” he said. “But to make something that’s truly national or international – which is our plan over the next couple of years – to keep growing it into that size where Illawarra and Wollongong is known for this festival.”
Mr Perry did admit there were some things they could improve on for next year, but overall was happy with the success of many of the events like the Wild Rumpus sign painting workshop and the Forever Banquet.
Mark Dombkins hosted the charity dinner and said he was overwhelmed with the turnout and the amount of people inquiring about their Tanzanian marketplace setup at throughout the festival.
“It was a real experiment to try and come out and give people what a real sense of what it’s like in Africa and how easy it is to change lives,” he said. “We’ve been able to engage with so many more people.”
It was to raise money and awareness of children in Tanzania.