Fresh Funding Boost for South Australian Music Festivals

More South Australian music festivals are on the horizon.

The SA Government has sparked a new generation of festivals in the latest round of its $10 million See It Live program to revive the state’s live music sector.

Five recipients received $50,000 each as part of the Music Festival/Event (Major) category.

One is a millennial-aimed tribute to SA’s first outdoor music festival in January 1971 – known as the Myponga Music – although its proper name was Australian Festival of Progressive Music.

It was held over three days in a cow paddock in a Myponga dairy farm on the Fleurieu Peninsula, bought by promoter Hamish Henry of Grape Organisation and Music Power for the event.

He paid $12,000 to set it up, $120,000 in today’s money, which was organised by young music entrepreneurs Alex Innocenti and Trevor Brien.

The bill included international act Black Sabbath along with the cream of Australian festival acts.

They included Daddy Cool, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, Moonshine Jug and String Band (later The Angels), Spectrum, Chain, and Jeff St John’s Copperwine with Wendy Saddington.

An official 15,000 attended, paying the $6 entry fee. But another 5,000 jumped the fence, bringing the total to 20,000.

The 2023 version will be held late October or early November at the Myponga Memorial Community Club Oval complex to an audience of 10,000 to 11,000.

It will be produced by Adelaide Live Events (ALE) comprising of Hamish Henry and Victor Marshall from the Grape Organisation, Rob Pippan from Rob Pippan Productions and Scott Rich of Richfam Productions. 

“It will pay homage to the original festival in that we’ll have mostly cutting-edge new rock bands the way it had over 50 years ago,” Pippan said.

To widen the crowd, there’ll be leading SA bands and a major heritage act, now possibly an international name due to the new funding.

“We want it to create regional tourism benefits and, in the wake of the pandemic, bring the community and business together,” he added.

The inaugural Juicy Juicy Green Grass Festival, pairing rising acts with wineries and breweries, is at Adelaide University in March 2023.

Promoter Gareth Lewis, of General Admission Entertainment, told TMN more details would be unveiled in late October when the bill is finalised.

“South Australia is absolutely ready for a new generation of festivals.

“We import a lot of festivals so we might as well be producing our own,” Lewis said.

The other three $50,000 recipients are:

Vintage Vibes by Arts & Entertainment SA at Tomich Wines in the Adelaide Hills, featuring international and domestic acts through 2023.

Five Four Entertainment’s acclaimed alt-rock/ punk Stonecutters festival, which began in 2015, will make a post-covid return.

The Fat Controller Club will hold Fats’ Beach Party in summer on the foreshore at Glenelg.

Announced in June, applications to See It LIVE closed quicker than expected.

Minister for the Arts, Andrea Michaels, said $3 million of the $10 million was already spent.

“The demand for every element of the recovery package is a testament to the need for this level of support,” she said.

“We are doing exactly what we said we’d do when we launched our $10 million live music support package in June.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, our live music scene has witnessed major job losses, the cancellation of thousands of major events and artists performances and closure of many small businesses.”

See It LIVE’s e-vouchers component saw 220, worth $400 each, going to venues to fund gigs.

Enigma Bar and Fat Controller were among 200 benefitting from the $5,000 venue upgrade funding.

The Medium and Large Music Event grants are also closed, with 100 $5,000 Medium Event grants and 25 $20,000 Large Event grants – totalling $1 million – approved.