St Kilda Festival
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St Kilda Festival

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“Basically the campaign is about securing the sustainability of the festival and making sure that it can continue on for the next few years to come,” affirms festival producer Adele Denison. The Show You Give A Buck campaign is a chance for the public to give back to the festival that has become such a treasured event. Merchandise such as t-shirts, drink holders, hats, badges, magnets and more are all up for grabs with all proceeds being poured straight back into the festival.

“Festival costs are rising as the costs of all events are rising and I guess we needed to find a new revenue stream,” says Denison. “There are music festivals right across Australia that are in trouble and we’ve seen that probably for the last 12-18 months. Our costs are the same (as other festivals) but we’re not getting the box office revenue that those festivals are. So they’re in trouble even with their box office so we really needed to find a creative way of making up that revenue and keeping the festival’s head above water.”

But what the St Kilda Festival may lack in box office sales, it makes up for in attendance with it being one of the few festivals to feature quality musical acts, while not discriminating against people who may not have much cash in their back pocket.

“The more festivals there are the more we’re all competing for artists and so it’s been a bit of a rise in artists fees and not necessarily being able to program the way you want because bands might be holding out for x, y or z festival,” says Denison of just some of the challenges faced in the current climate. “So it has hit us in those sorts of ways but I guess we do count ourselves lucky that we’re not reliant on people buying tickets and that has given us a bit of freedom in how we program the festival.”

It seems that the St Kilda Festival has found quite a niche within Melbourne, being the one festival that anyone, whether student, pensioner or child can attend and not have to worry about shelling out $200 a ticket.

“We ask people, ‘Have you gone to any other festivals in the past 12 months’ and every year we get at least 50% of people saying no and I think that is because we are free and not everybody can pay the sorts of ticket prices that we’re seeing those days,” says Denison. “So it’s a unique festival that’s got a pretty important place so we’re doing everything we can to keep it around.”

Despite the increasing financial pressures, it seems the St Kilda Festival at least is not receiving any less love from Australian bands. “It is a changing world for them as well and live revenue is really how they’re making their money now, states Denison. “No one wants to play every festival and some festivals won’t take you if you’ve played a month before so it’s a delicate balancing act but we’ve got great support from so many Australian artists.”

So with so much at stake I ask Denison what is the current state of health of the iconic festival? “I think given the strength of the response we’ve had in the past I’m really hopeful this is going to be a successful campaign and ask me again in a month I’ll be able to say ten out of ten for that health rating.” Fingers crossed.

BY JAMES NICOLI