“A couple of years ago I lost a close family member to suicide. After the fall-out from that, in order to come to terms with it, I wanted to put something out there in the community,” he says.
The festival is a proud supporter of the Beyond Blue organisation. Music is known to have a positive impact on people’s wellbeing and Mannix hopes Come Together will go some way to address any isolation someone may be experiencing.
“Seeing people close to me who were facing challenging life experiences including mental health issues was a big motivation to develop the Come Together Festival. This is a wonderful way to celebrate life and the ability to have fun together as a community, despite the adversity that many face.”
The second reason for putting the festival together was simple – once you have a young family it gets difficult to attend music festivals, especially the bigger ones. So Mannix figured he’d make his own. “I want to make it accessible to me and to my friends,” he says. “It’s hard for us to run off and go to WOMAD or the Byron Bay Bluesfest. I want Come Together to be an accessible, family friendly festival where I get to hear the kind of music I like. Although I’m not a musician, I always had a passion for music. I used to DJ and I went to a lot of festivals and raves. I got involved in organising events when I was in my 20s, so I kind of knew what to do.”
Come Together, run by Mannix, his wife, and a small team of locals, is not only about the music. Mannix says he wants to provide good music, good art and look after people, especially those from around Eltham. “There are a lot of creative people out this way,” he says. “Our venue, Edendale Farm, is beautiful, in one of the green leafy parts of Melbourne. It’s a good place to bring people, bring musicians to.”
Come Together features some of Melbourne’s top musicians in genres as diverse as reggae, soul, jazz, blues, African funk and chill-out electronica. As well as the live acts, DJs will perform sets throughout the day. Things to keep kids happy include dancing sessions and puppet workshops. As far as the musical curation goes, Mannix simply invites the artists he likes.
“I’ve just been cherry picking, going by what I like – the style of music I like and who I’ve seen. We’ve got an eclectic mix of amazing musicians and good DJs with a mixture of live and pre-recorded stuff. There are some pretty interesting out-there electronic musicians.”
Does Mannix have plans for the future of Come Together? “I’d like to link in with WOMAD, piggyback on them, have musicians who are playing there come to us.”
He says it’s important that the festival stays small. “We’re capping it at a 1000. We want to make a safe environment for kids to run around in. It worked last year. Everyone’s into it. We reached a broad range of people.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
