When the Big Day Out ended after more than 20 years of serving music-lovers it spread a very dark cloud over the industry.
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Large Australian festivals were failing to appeal to the masses leaving a graveyard of good times.
The decline in popularity saw stalwarts like Good Vibrations, V Festival, Homebake, Soundwave and Future Music all turn to dust.
But festivals are not dead.
Instead smaller boutique events that combine music, art and gourmet food are on steadily on the rise.
In August, MTV announced they were bringing their Beats and Eats festival to Wollongong in November.
Organisers say there will be “main-stage performances, delicious food stalls and bars and a whole bunch of crazy activities you would only expect from MTV”.
The two-day Fairground Festival returns to Berry Showgrounds for a second year which includes indie musicians, a “mini-festival” for kids, markets and food stalls.
Wollongong’s Yours and Owls festival has gone from strength to strength since it began in 2010.
Organisers have just announced it will incorporate a nine-day “fringe festival” in the lead up to the Labour Day weekend music event.
Sydney band The Jezabels are one of the headline acts at Yours and Owls and their frontwoman believes the festival scene is “like rock and roll” in that it won’t die but just evolve.
“People think it’s going away and then someone’s going to come and save it but I actually think festivals are fine,” Hayley Mary said.
“Like bands they have an arc, they start out small and just grow and grow and sometimes they get too big for what they were ... then they kind of disappear.
“I don’t think the festival thing is ever going to die, it’s kind of a pagan roots thing, people need to have physical and spiritual engagement with music, it’s a basic requirement.”
Dean Hanson from Brisbane’s Ball Park Music, also heading to Yours and Owls, agreed festivals were making a resurgence.
Hanson was recently looking up all the new festivals sprouting around the country and said there were an “outrageous” amount of options in 2016.
“Lots of festivals have become a bit defunct over the last few years but then there seems to be ambitious young people, who haven't been through that hell hole, who think they can start a new festival,” he said.
“They’re now offering new things to punters as well, like ‘bring your own couch and leave it here’ sort of thing, or glamping.
“It’s really targeting young people so they think it’s not just a big muddy sweat fest.”
Wollongong to get fringe benefits
Destination Wollongong has partnered with the organisers of Yours and Owls to produce a nine-day fringe festival as a prelude to the Labour Day weekend music event.
Markets, live music, art, theatre, experimental digital, tech installations and workshops will pop up around the CBD from Friday September 23.
“[It’s] an exciting venture that can evolve and expand over coming years on the national stage and become synonymous with the region,” Destination Wollongong general manager Mark Sleigh said.
They’ve reworked last year’s Blender festival, adding more diverse and free events to evolve into a celebration of Wollongong’s thriving cultural scene.
Outdoor cinema will be setup in the Arts Precinct near the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre showing movies like the original Ghostbusters, The Great Gatsby and Kill Bill.
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is stopping by for a ticketed event, doing what he does best and “make science sexy”.
Gardening Australia host Clarence Slockee will give a tour of the Wollongong Botanic Garden with a cooking demonstration and robots will sing and dance in the Polygon Door Installation.
“This is us confirming Wollongong as a creative hub, a travel destination and a city that can and will host an internationally renowned fringe festival,” said Yours and Owls co-founder Ben Tillman.
To see what’s free, what’s not and schedule visit: www.yourandowls.com.au