Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The last few years have been incredibly difficult for many, particularly in the state of Victoria, firstly due to the impact of COVID and the disruptions that it had on our lives, and then this year with the flood event that we've had. It's been difficult for lots of business, lots of services and lots of organisations but it's been particularly difficult for our festivals, our creatives and our music scene.

Last weekend was the final Bendigo Blues & Roots Festival. The organisers and founders said that, after a decade, they were moving on. They'd done their bit and they'd loved it, but they were exhausted. A real problem we have in our creatives sector is that quite often the volunteers who organise these wonderful community based festivals, if they don't get funding to put on events, or if they get funding for gigs but not actual wages, do struggle once they hit that 10-year mark. We all love the Bendigo Blues & Roots Festival in Bendigo, its very purpose and the foundation of why it started. I really want to give a shout-out to Amy, Colin and the committee, who, for a decade, have helped deliver this wonderful festival.

It started with a really basic premise. They wanted to bring good, live music back into the heart of Bendigo and pay artists properly so that they could perform and earn a decent wage. Think back to a decade ago to some of the toxic culture that we had in a bit of our night scene in Bendigo. There was jelly wrestling and mud wrestling happening—really awful, distasteful, derogatory events. This festival said: we can be different. We can go out and have fun, but we'll go out to enjoy music.

The festival really focuses on encouraging people of all ages to enjoy music, and last weekend I had great joy in taking my two little toddlers to the cushion concert. It was fun. It was fun to see little people enjoying good music. But one of the key reasons why the festival is wrapping up after 10 years is because, after two years of having to cancel throughout COVID and then the impact of the floods, a lot of their partners were not sure that they wanted to contribute or be involved in the way they previously had. Funding festivals is getting harder as funding is being diverted to flood-recovery activities. Businesses are struggling to host festivals because of insurance costs and because they, too, are struggling to get back up on their feet and find the staff.

Longer term, we really need to look at how we support our live music industry and our creative sector, particularly in the regions. To the ones who are making festivals and concerts happen, good on you, because we know the challenges are against you. Our government has introduced a number of reforms that will really help in supporting the sector to recover, but we need to also rethink how we do festivals.

This is where I do want to give a shout-out to the Bendigo Blues and Roots committee and their plans for next year. Whilst the four-day festival will not be coming back next year, they have organised the Bendigo Blues and Roots into a number of events. There'll be showcase days that will be held at one venue, so it will be like four days of festival over the year as opposed to four days in a row. The Bendigo Blues and Roots tram will still happen. People can still jump on the tram, ride through town and enjoy blues music.

They will have many blues and roots artists visiting Bendigo and going to some of our smaller towns, and concerts in the park. So we will still get the opportunity to enjoy great music organised by the Bendigo Blues and Roots Festival, but it will be spread out over the year as opposed to all in four days. It's an incredibly innovative way that Amy and Colin are thinking about how it can still achieve the same enjoyment and experience of music, but not the intensity over four days.

To all the volunteers, to all the organisers, to Amy, to Colin, to their family and to all the sponsors over the decade: thank you what you've done for our town to help us regain our place in the music calendar and rebuild after COVID. It was great to see the town alive last weekend. It was great to see people out and about post the floods and post COVID, not only enjoying each other's company but coming together to enjoy music.

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