News October 27, 2015

Gympie Music Muster to break $15 million mark for charity

Senior Journalist, B2B

The Gympie Music Muster in Queensland, which wrapped up last night after four days,marked by a triumphant return to the state of Sheppard andlooks like it will breakthe $15 million mark raised for community and charity groups, organisers said.

The not-for-profit festival was set up in 1982 as a community fund raiser by Apex Club of Gympie. It involves about 1400 volunteers and 40 local community groups. This year’s charity partner is YoungCare, which aims to get young people with a disability out of aged care facilities (numbered at 7,000) and into more appropriate long-term accommodation.

Organisers also reported, “The Muster injected close to $6.8 million into the Queensland economy in 2014 and looks to match this for 2015.”

Last year, the Muster added $5 million in the Gympie region – at a time when many businesses went under finding it difficult to recover from the 2013 floods.

With such figures, little wonder that national and state politicians made their presence felt. Among those attending were Member for Hinkler Keith Pitt MP, Gympie Regional Council Mayor, Mick Curran, LNP Member for Gympie Tony Perrett and Independent Senator for Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie.

The final tally for crowd attendance at the 50-hectare plot at Amamoor Creek State Forest Park was not available. The Muster drew 60,000 in 2011.

Sheppard who had to blow out a previous Muster appearance for TV appearances in America when their record started to break internationally, stayed true to their word to make up amends. They took a break from working on their second album in Brisbane. Their packed out set marked the only torrential downpour over the four day event.

Also drawing huge crowds of the 140 acts who played 350 shows across seven stages were Troy Cassar-Daley, Amber Lawrence, Luke O’Shea, Catherine Britt, Shane Howard, Wagons and Ian Moss while Festival Director Jeff Chandler reported high turnout for events as The Bush Poets' Breakfast and ukulele and songwriting workshops.

According to stats supplied by organisers, the Muster went through:

2,400,000 Sheets of loo paper

476,426 Total Facebook reach

52,527 People engaged on the Facebook Page

50,000 MB of WiFi data used in total

40,000 Litres of diesel for the generators

38,195 Tweets

5,360 Snap Chat images

3,222 Instagram posts using #gympiemuster

2,272 Guitar strings

637 Star pickets

482 Metres fencing wire