The Mullum Music Festival
(Click through the photo’s above for full gallery – All Pics by Hamish McCormick, Carnival Cinema)
Where I live, in the Byron Shire, beautiful Arakwal, Bundjalung country of Northern NSW, there is no shortage of festivals. There are the massive music ones, on their own sites, like the Blues Festival, Falls and Splendour in the Grass as well as a plethora of smaller music, arts and new age yoga & healing festivals.
Now in its 11th year and attracting around 8000 people over 4 days, Mullum Music Festival is a far cry from those huge festivals.
As those who get (and read), our fortnightly newsletters will know, I’m very into this notion of culture creation through ‘real life’ community gathering and connection and the MMF is a great example of that.
The Magic bus
It engages the whole town of Mullumbimby – pubs, cafes, church halls and the local high school all turn into venues and festival-goers buy a day or weekend passes – therefore the town comes alive, people walk from venue to venue or catch the Magic Buses – two free double-decker buses which circuit the town, ‘staffed’ by crew with huge smiles, fully dressed up (they also have boxes of hats, wigs and dress ups for the passengers to put on) and listening to great tunes.
This engenders a great level of connection with friends and strangers alike on the street as people move around town – “what are you going to see?” “you have to catch such n such” -people stop to listen to a performer on the street or take a breather in their favourite cafe and even if you don’t have a ticket to the festival there is pop up performances, free gigs at the farmers market and the Sunday street parade to enjoy. There isn’t security in hi-vis vests everywhere, no gates, port-a-loos, bag searches or VIP areas, no huge queues for toilets or bars and rubbish does not litter the ground.
Festival Director Glenn Wright and his awesome team at Red Square Music (Glenn’s company that produces the MMF as well as Bello Winter Music festival and the Bendigo Autumn Music festival which premieres 2019 as well as presenting touring artists) program a hugely diverse range of artists and musical genres, with international and national acts as well as local artists and emerging talent and have a great mentoring program. They proudly have equal gender representation in their programming and the age range on stage over the weekend is anywhere from 12 to 70, old masters and fresh first timers share space, there’s kids shows, workshops, comedy shows and you’ll always find the Spaghetti Circus performance troupe rocking an out door stage somewhere. It is a festival enjoyed by the young and old alike.
Another great thing that Glenn and his crew have instigated is when you are working on the festival, whether as a volunteer, crew member or artists, everyone is treated equally and you all wear the same wristbands which might seem like a small thing but it has big ramifications on the general ‘vibe’ of the festival, a recogninition of everyones role in making this event exist.
Festival Director Glenn Wright & wife Caroline ‘Scrap’ Kinsella
The festival not only supports the town and community economically and culturally but the crew at Red Square run programs and events promoting sustainability and environmental care over the festival weekend and throughout the year, including a great annual Mothers day Tree planting gathering.
I have known Glenn and his wife Caroline for a few years now and have been am one of the photographers at the festival, I always find it inspiring to watch how Glenn and Co interact with their crew, artists and volunteers and how they go about running their festival, creating an amazing event and space for celebration and connection, adding immense value to our community.
The Festival runs Nov 15-18 2018
Find out about this years line up and any other info at www.mullummusicfestival.com
Don’t forget the crew at Red Square also have been running the Bello Winter Music festival for the last 3 years in July and in April 2019 will launch the Bendigo Autumn Music festival, both run with the same format and ethos as MMF, I highly recommend attending one of them!
I hope you enjoy the little taste of the MMF through my lens in the gallery at the top,
Peace,
Hamish
More MMF links:
– Mullum Music Festival 2018 Artist on Spotify Playlist
– Red Square Music
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