New regional festival in Victoria goes BAM

Red Square, the company behind NSW regional festivals Mullum Music and Bello Winter Music is expanding to a third event in country Victoria.

Announced this morning, Bendigo Autumn Music (BAM) will take place over four days in Bendigo the weekend after Easter, Thursday April 25 – Sunday April 28, 2019.

Red Square is staging the event in a partnership, initially for a year, with City of Greater Bendigo and council’s Capital Venues and Events division.

It will utilise live music venues, pubs, community halls, cafes and other unique spaces to stage music and arts within Bendigo’s arts precinct.

Red Square director Glenn Wright tells TMN that he’d done a roadshow 18 months ago through half a dozen other locations before deciding on Bendigo.

Write explains how they eventually landed on Bendigo, “You need a community which would understand it. They seemed very real.

“They’ve got a strong cultural will and they want cultural events.

“It’s a creative city, and the people we are dealing with there are over-flowing with enthusiasm to hold it.

“One of the most important part of the deal is that Bendigo has spectacular venues and they are all within a close radius.”

BAM will follow the same format as its NSW cousins. There is equal representation of gender in programming, and the age of performers range from 72 to 12.

There will be no gates, port-a-loos, bag searches or VIP areas.

There’s also the same policy of having 30% of local acts to make up the bill.

“We also want to introduce sustainability measures of the first two festivals,” Wright says.

“We introduced recyclable cups for the bar and cut down waste by 85%.

“This year we are introducing a washing up area so that the food and drinks vendors can wash plates, glasses and crockery and re-use them.”

Regional tours as Groovin’ The Moo and Red Hot Summer have been huge earners, and the ABC reported last October that regional festivals as Splendour, Bluesfest, Falls, Woodford Folk and Yours and Owls were packing them in while some of their city slicker counterparts were falling apart.

“Regional is the new black, isn’t it,” Wright comments. “Bill Hauritz (Woodford Folk) gave me a piece of advice I’ve never forgotten –stage it two hours from the nearest city.

“Bendigo is 1 hour and 45 minutes from Melbourne, and that’s important.

“The reason why regional events are working so well is that people see them as a way to get away for a weekend and escape whatever it is they’re trying to forget.

“With Bendigo, audiences can explore the region’s local arts and culture offerings, food and wine, boutique guesthouses and B&B’s with a back-to-back music and arts.”

Mullum Music is estimated to inject $2.5 million to $3 million to the town of Mullumbimby.

Bello Winter Music has an economic impact of $1.5 million to Bellingen.

Wright forecasts that Bendigo Autumn will bring in about 2,500 people each day just for the festival, and thousands more for some of the free events being put on by the city and some of its businesses.

In its early stage, he predicts Bendigo will benefit with an extra $2.5 million.

Early bird tickets are available here.