Far-flung music festivals you've never heard of are regional Australia's newest drawcard Remote towns in Australia are partying. Not because the rains have finally come — sadly, they haven't — but because festival spirit is spreading fast. Right across the country, music festivals are popping up and bringing communities together. Some are large events well-known to a national audience, like the Big Red Bash in Birdsville, which this year boasts Midnight Oil as a headliner. Others are small, homegrown affairs, like Music in the Mulga, held on a cattle property 900 kilometres west of Brisbane. Country halls bring locals together The Festival of Small Halls travels the country, run by the festival heavyweights behind Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland. Organisers came up with the idea to help revitalise small towns through their local halls, which festival producer Eleanor Rigden says are a precious part of regional communities. "Every building that we go to, people talk to us about the memories that are engrained in the walls of those halls, and they're too special to let go," she said. "Regional Australia is a fantastic place full of thriving communities and they need access to the arts in the same way that people in the cities do." The latest festival ran from March to Easter this year and took place in halls across regional South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. In the small town of Ganmain in the Riverina region of New South Wales, locals couldn't wait for the much-anticipated event. "When you're in drought, it's particularly hard because you do withdraw a little bit," Hall Committee secretary Bronwyn Hatty said. "It's great for everybody's mental health to still maintain that community." Eudlo, a small inland town on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, has also hosted the festival and has since leveraged off its success. Local organisers created Eudlo Music Nights, a three-day event showcasing local talent that first launched in April 2018. Funds made from the festival go towards maintaining the local historic hall and town assets. Diversifying in tough times In the remote town of Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the local council has made the most of government grants to promote outback tourism. The region is known as one of Australia's best barramundi fishing spots, but locals wanted to give tourists more reasons to visit than just wetting a line. The Council launched its inaugural Barra and Blues festival in April this year. It's the brainchild of Verena Olesch, tourism manager at the Carpentaria Shire Council. "It creates an event where [though] it might not be school holidays, it could be a little bit outside the normal seasons, [it] provides more economic growth in the region," she said. At the other end of the scale are Carmel and Dave Meurant, owners of Wandilla Station outside Eulo in south-west Queensland, who run their Music in the Mulga festival completely on their own. It was bo
Far-flung music festivals you've never heard of are regional Australia's newest drawcard Remote towns in Australia are partying. Not because the rains have finally come — sadly, they haven't — but because festival spirit is spreading fast. Right across the country, music festivals are popping up and bringing communities together. Some are large events well-known to a national audience, like the Big Red Bash in Birdsville, which this year boasts Midnight Oil as a headliner. Others are small, homegrown affairs, like Music in the Mulga, held on a cattle property 900 kilometres west of Brisbane. Country halls bring locals together The Festival of Small Halls travels the country, run by the festival heavyweights behind Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland. Organisers came up with the idea to help revitalise small towns through their local halls, which festival producer Eleanor Rigden says are a precious part of regional communities. "Every building that we go to, people talk to us about the memories that are engrained in the walls of those halls, and they're too special to let go," she said. "Regional Australia is a fantastic place full of thriving communities and they need access to the arts in the same way that people in the cities do." The latest festival ran from March to Easter this year and took place in halls across regional South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. In the small town of Ganmain in the Riverina region of New South Wales, locals couldn't wait for the much-anticipated event. "When you're in drought, it's particularly hard because you do withdraw a little bit," Hall Committee secretary Bronwyn Hatty said. "It's great for everybody's mental health to still maintain that community." Eudlo, a small inland town on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, has also hosted the festival and has since leveraged off its success. Local organisers created Eudlo Music Nights, a three-day event showcasing local talent that first launched in April 2018. Funds made from the festival go towards maintaining the local historic hall and town assets. Diversifying in tough times In the remote town of Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the local council has made the most of government grants to promote outback tourism. The region is known as one of Australia's best barramundi fishing spots, but locals wanted to give tourists more reasons to visit than just wetting a line. The Council launched its inaugural Barra and Blues festival in April this year. It's the brainchild of Verena Olesch, tourism manager at the Carpentaria Shire Council. "It creates an event where [though] it might not be school holidays, it could be a little bit outside the normal seasons, [it] provides more economic growth in the region," she said. At the other end of the scale are Carmel and Dave Meurant, owners of Wandilla Station outside Eulo in south-west Queensland, who run their Music in the Mulga festival completely on their own. It was bo
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