Category: music festivals

Goomalling & Biosphere Boodja 2025

Giant whales drifting through wheat fields and wheat silos used as a backdrop for magical projections. What an incredible weekend of art and community in Goomalling!

A whale in a wheat field, a parade of delightful ceramic echidnas as far as the eye could see, fresh crop circles that may or may not have been created by aliens, and some of the finest humans in the biosphere all gathered one long weekend in September in a tiny country town where not much usually happens. The Biosphere Boodja Arts and Wild Things Festival in Goomalling has just happened and I was lucky enough to be there!

The tiny wheatbelt town of Goomalling was the locus for this incredible happening, or ‘creative uprising’. It was the brainchild of Internationally acclaimed Perth ceramic artist and the festival’s creative art director, Fleur Schell, who was born in the wheatbelt town of Goomalling.  

She had a dream, or perhaps more of a vision, that she brought to life with some funding from Lottery West, major sponsors, private donors and the local community. Collaborating closely with Ballardong Nyungar Elder Tracy De Grussa and with the local community including primary school children from the two small primary schools in the town and with the Goomalling Op Shop behind her, Goomalling definitely had a happening! 

The small town of Goomalling is under two hours northeast of Perth in the Avon Valley and the Western  Australian wheatbelt.  Like all wheatbelt towns, it’s all about the wheat and it’s the enormous grain storage domes that immediately grab your attention when you drive into town that formed part of Fleur’s vision for the Biosphere Boodja Festival.

The giant spherical silos are pure white and look like something you may find on Mars if the future of life in space ever comes to fruition. When Fleur was a child they were really buried dinosaur eggs. They were also the perfect canvas for the incredible Totem Story projections that were cast that Sunday evening.

As a clay artist Fleur saw an opportunity to invite visiting ceramicists in Perth for ‘Wedge 2025: The Australian Ceramics Triennale in Fremantle’ scheduled for the following weekend in Fremantle.  Clay play and ceramics with clay provided by Midland Brick, formed a  large part of the festival and the workshops available for festival goers. Throw in some of Perth’s premier musos, a sculpture exhibition in a wheat field, some dancing, yoga and a giant puppet parade and the experience was out of this world. 

The festival was free to those who attended ; There were different camping options including glamping and family camping areas. We paid for bush camping on the decidedly rustic golf course.  It was close to everything, including a million mosquitoes.  

I’m a Tassie girl who grew up in isolated places and went to high school in a small country town so I have a thing for small country towns.  While Western Australian wheatbelt towns are a far cry from the lush farming towns in Tasmania there is an essence that spans all country towns and ties them together. That essence is isolation and community.

For me, wheatbelt towns are not comfortably accessible all year round due to the extreme temperatures in summer. Not to someone who likes to spend time outdoors and camping anyways, so I try to get out there as much as I can during the cooler months.  There is something magical about wide open spaces, random granite rocks and wheat silos.

This trip was my second foray into the wheatbelt this year; a couple of months prior I went and spent a day and night hanging in the Granite Way at Kwolyin Camp ground and Kokerbin Rock, one of my favourite places to explore.  There really is nowhere better for star gazing!

So when Biosphere Boodja came up on my radar, I jumped at the chance, found a festival buddy and headed back into that wheat belt that I just can’t get enough of.

The drive out was ethereal; green wheat fields on either side and the fading flowers of the remaining canola, almost finished flowering.  As drifted into towns surrounded by modest hills incredible mists filled the valleys. It was all I could do not to pull over every 10 minutes to take photos.

When I reached Goomalling at 8:30 that morning (yes I had got up very early to leave) I was the first bush camper to roll in and register. We were camping on the golf course and being a dry wheat belt town the golf green was not how you imagine a green in the big city. Nevertheless, they wanted to protect their fairway so we camped in the bush on the side of the daisy-covered fairway with about 10 million mosquitoes. 

The town volunteers were all incredibly friendly. They popped me down at the end so I could drive out easily the next day and they saved a space for my friend Elaine who had a rooftop tent. Turns out we were first to arrive and last to leave. That’s how we roll.

I set up camp and Elaine arrived via the Goomalling Op Shop with a trawl of treasures and set up her rooftop, then we set off to explore the town.  Right next to the golf course was the wheat field ‘crop circle’ exhibition – literally a wheat field with cleared paths and some incredible sculptural art works, including Fleur Schell’s ‘Wheat Whale’.  So we diverted into the field.

The sun was up and the wheat swayed in the soft breeze; quite magical.  Next we wandered to the markets and the main oval to see where we could expect to be based for the next couple of days.  The markets were a collection of local artists stalls.  I made a few small purchases, including a cap printed by a young girl who had created a selection of t-shirts and hats with her designs.  

With eats never far from my mind I was happy to note a variety of food trucks and a couple of bars set up on the oval, and we soon found the stage which would be the centre of our weekend escapades, when we weren’t having a drink in the Boodja Bar or the bowls club. I was excited.

We settled in for Aunty Tracy’s Welcome to Country and a string of fabulous Western Australian bands including Lucy Peach and some incredible acts from the area.  

The rest of the day was spent wandering about checking out the workshops all facilitated in huge white dome tents not unlike the wheat silos, and pausing for drinks from the comfortable Boodja Bar with Op Shop chairs and cushions, to the Goomalling Bowling Club bar. The rain came but it wasn’t the soaking type so we stayed mostly dry.  

We decided a final visit to the town Op Shop was in order, seeing as I hadn’t been yet, and headed into the wide streets of Goomalling for another walk about.  The Op Shop was on the main street, just past the hotel, the post office and Bendigo Bank, and it was heaving!  Most of the good stuff had been bought up by the bargain-hungry visitors.  The Op Shop manager was very happy with her day’s takings declaring it ‘the best day of takings she had ever had.’  

I found nothing but enjoyed the browse before we went back to camp to prepare our clothing for the coming evening.  Back for another drink or two at the Bowls Club before the children and festival goers began congregating for the puppet parade and song performance by the children.

What followed brought me to tears!  The giant paper mache whale and Koomal possum that we had seen sheltered in the tent earlier that day came to life with lights and a group of young people moving their parts as they circled the area in front of the stage accompanied by a drumming group. The children sang a song about the disappearance of the Koomal possum, written by Fleur and then we all set off towards the silos as the sun set and darkness fell. 

There was a real sense of being part of something so unique and important as we all stopped in front of the silos and all the lights were extinguished.  The Totem Story projected onto those crazy dinosaur eggs and narrated by Aunty Tracy and children was just incredible.  

Totem Stories on Goomalling wheat silos

When it finished we all strolled slowly back into town feeling like we had been part of something beautiful.  It was clear how much work had gone into every part of the weekend from the involvement of the local schools in the incredible art projects to the local businesses and volunteers who made it all possible.

The remainder of the evening was spent having food and listening to the music by local and Western Australian acts; finishing on a funky note with a boogie to Odette Mercy and the Soul Atomics before we stumbled back to our golf course camp for sleep.

I was woken at 5:00 am by the sound of the hot air balloon that had been sitting on the oval the day before,  being inflated on the oval for a sunrise flight;  the steady hum of the generator and then the huge huffing sounds of the flame being shot into the full balloon.  I just had to get a photo so I braved the mossies and got to the railway line as it lifted into the cloudy skies.  I got my pics and climbed back into bed for another hour.

Day two started with a sausage sizzle right outside our tents as the local P & C cooked us up a meaty breakfast of sausages, onions and sauce (onions and sauce for the vegetarians).  I scoffed down a sausage but Elaine passed on the onion in a bun.  So we dressed and headed into town.  It was pretty chill as we found coffee and a space on the grass for the remaining acts.  The festival ended with the Rose Parker Trio and a whole lot of thank yous and congratulations.

As we walked back to our cars, the only two left on the golf course, we reflected on our experience and decided it was one of the best weekends we could have had. Thank you to everyone who made it happen.

Fairbridge Festival 2021 – Rocking out with the kids.

2021 saw the comeback of the music Festival following a year of uncertainty. Fairbridge Festival 2021 – Rocking out with the kids.

Every event that goes ahead these days is a triumph. I am feeling incredibly lucky to have attended my second music festival in as many months. Once again, I attended as a volunteer and found the festival very rewarding and loads of fun.

Fairbridge Festival is an institution in Western Australia. In 1992, two committee members of the WA Folk Federation, Max Klubal and Sally Grice, decided to investigate the possibility of a folk festival on the Fairbridge site. In 1993, the first festival was held and the rest, they say, is history. https://www.fairbridgefestival.com.au/about/

In 2020 the festival was cancelled for the first time due to Covid19. Ticket holders were asked to hold onto their tickets and volunteers guaranteed a volunteer position the next year.

My friends and I have been attending Fairbridge Festival for over 20 years. In the early years our children grew up with Fairbridge being an annual event. Loading up children and tents in tiny cars was an art in packing. Marie Kondo would have been impressed. As they became more independent teenagers we would all converge for giant cook-ups in the mornings only to go our separate ways during the day. Showers stopped being a thing and the drive home was always a stinky, dusty experience. Now we go together, mostly without our kids. Adults now, they occasionally make an appearance. In recent years we have all started volunteering and it’s a great way to be part of the festival.

In previous years I had volunteered in the “Woodshed” with the little tikes. The Woodshed is run by Tracey Laird of Perth Kids Shed, who provides workshops for school-aged children. https://perthkidsshed.com.au/pages/about-us Fairbridge’s Woodshed is probably not the destination for you if you have issues with your hearing, your nerves, or you are hungover. 30 plus children all wielding hammers, saws and electric drills! What could possibly go wrong? Each year I worked the Woodshed I would swear I was going to “try something different, next time”. Each year, I would forget the pain and the ringing ears and once again put my hand up for the job. I liken it to childbirth, you must forget the pain over 12 months.

Following the appropriate amount of time required to forget pain I was prepared to assault my ears and senses in 2021. Two years had gone by, which meant I was positively waxing lyrical about “working with the little ones to unlock their creative woodworking potential.” So you can imagine my disappointment when I was informed that the Woodshed would not be running in 2021. I was given the job of “Stage Manager” on the Kaleidoscope Children’s Stage. Two shifts of listening to children’s music and children’s entertainers. A pretty cruisy gig.

The entertainers were all brilliant and I found myself belly-laughing on more than one occasion. The Saturday night kids disco was the place to be. The dance floor was bouncing, and not just with children. Adults YMCA’d, Moved it Moved it and generally had a great time. When Sam the DJ dropped Primal Scream’s Loaded, parents flocked to the dance floor, not a child in sight! It it hadn’t been 7:00 pm and 2021, AND I wasn’t stone cold sober I could have been back on the dance floor of my favourite 90’s club.

My job, as Stage Manager? A piece of cake. I had to make sure the artists had everything they needed, move some chairs around, and occasionally report a lost child or parent. All while looking important with a “walkie talkie” and a clipboard. I think the kids stage was the least stressful of all the Fairbridge stages.

The rest of the festival was brilliant. The acts consisted of mostly local WA artists. Highlights: Seeing my good friend, Leanne get up and perform her own song at the morning jam session in The Loft; Carla Geneve at the Backlot; and a good old Beatles singalong on the last night. It’s great to see that musicians are getting out and gigging again. Its been a tough 12 months for the performing folk. The dust storms followed by torrential rain made it a very muddy affair. But, what is a festival without a bit of mud and dust?

Post Script: When I arrived for my first shift at the kids stage I was surprised to see a Woodshed set up right next to the stage tent. I admit to feeling slightly miffed. Was it something I said/did? Following some investigation, I found out it was a last minute inclusion and the Men’s Shed were running it. From all accounts, I think they found it quite challenging. I predict that I will be back in the Woodshed next year.

To read about volunteering at Nannup Festival – Click here https://www.lisabenjess.org/nannup-music-festival-2021-a-volunteers-view/

How to get the best out of a music festival. Volunteering at Nannup Music Festival 2021

Nannup Music Festival, the little festival with a big heart!

There’s an old military saying “never volunteer for anything,” but that is certainly not my adage.WA has truly been one of the lucky states in Australia for the  12 months since Covid19 first impacted our country. In Western Australia, following the initial lock down of April 2020, we enjoyed many days of Covid free living, apart from the recent 5 day lock down. A stark contrast to our friends in Victoria and NSW.     

I attended Nannup Music Festival this year as a volunteer. I drove the shuttle bus a 3km round trip from camp site to town , while  my friends worked the bar, (wo)manned the gate and MC’d the stages. The fact that we could attend a music festival at all was not lost on any of  us.

Sunset at the Nannup Music Festival

Nannup Music Festival is a  three day festival set in the Western Australian bush, situated in the quaint town of Nannup which is 3.5 hours south of Perth.  The festival usually attracts artists from the national and international stage and sells around 4000 tickets.  2021 saw crowd numbers limited in venues,  due to Covid19 restrictions,  and the talent was very much a Western Australian affair with some artists travelling interstate from Darwin and Queensland.  

Nannup Music Festival 2021 will forever be etched on our minds as “the year of no beer”.  Over the many years I have been attending music festivals with my friends,  there is usually a single event or a series of events that define that year.  There was “the great flood” of Fairbridge Music Festival in 2008 when torrential rain flattened our tents and cut off power to the main stage.  Particularly memorable because one of  our children called 000 as they were caught in their tent when the rain started and did not know what to do.  The first we knew of their panicked call for help was a police car turning up and 2 puzzled constables wading through mud, searching for “the scene of the crime”.

There was “the big wind” of 2017, also at Fairbridge,  which ripped tents and shelters out of the ground and generally wreaked havoc.    A foray into the earnest world of folk music at Nanga Music Festival is one we always remember and laugh about, and we will never forget sleepless nights at Wave Rock Weekender , when we camped beside the soundscape, which ran all night. I have attended many festivals in my time but this is the first one I have known to run out of beer. 

  I had first hand information on Saturday afternoon that some types of  beer had already run out and there was only a small selection of other beverages available.  By Sunday lunchtime the alcohol situation was pretty dire despite more supplies arriving.  Sunday night I was driving the shuttle bus from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm and word on the street was “the bars have all run out of alcohol!”  Following what had been a fairly raucous Saturday night of ferrying inebriated patrons to and from the camp ground, Sunday was a fairly sober affair!

Nannup Music Festival is an artists festival and it can only run with the help of volunteers.  I only received my volunteer rosters 2 days before the beginning of the festival so I did not get a lot of choice about the timing of those shifts. Two late nights shifts meant I missed all the evening performances and had the added joy of dealing with drunk passengers with no extra support. So the lack of alcohol on Sunday night actually made my life easier!

It’s these moments that I will remember with a smile: The group of 20 somethings who sang a canon of “The Wheels on the Bus” with ALL the verses; the inebriated guy who sat in the front seat and got into a discussion with me about teaching and then asked if he could do another loop to continue the chat; the young girl who got on the empty bus alone, and when I asked her if she was having a good festival, she burst into tears and told me she had just broken up with her boyfriend and he had left her alone with no transport home; the group of lovely young women on a “hen’s” weekend who were constantly ferrying members of their group back to the campsite because they had too much to drink; the countless young men who thought they could pull the wool over my eyes and pretend there was a seat at the very back of the bus when there wasn’t; and the laughter when I told the whole bus I was a school teacher and that I wasn’t going to take any shit.

Despite the lack of alcohol, the crowd kept dancing and the bands kept playing. The world did not stop turning and I think I could safely say that everyone who attended this years festival would have only good things to say.  It’s just a shame that this glitch might mean the difference between a festival that breaks even and one that doesn’t.

Musical highlights for me: Ruby Gilbert @ the Secret Garden on Saturday morning; Ben Evolent @ the Nannup Hotel on Sunday afternoon; Alter Boy @ Tigerville ; Gina williams & Guy Ghouse also @ The Secret Garden; and John Bennett Trio @ The Amphitheater on Sunday night.

My next volunteer gig is Fairbridge Festival 9th – 11th of April, 2021 in Pinjarra, where I can be found in the Woodshed helping kids hammer nails into wood and use electric drills. What could possibly go wrong?

Side Note: The 2021 Fairbridge Festival ended up being the last one to be held at Fairbridge Village. The festival organisers are still looking for an alternative venue 😦

Nannup Music Festival 2021
Nannup Music Festival 2021

Think you might want to volunteer? Most festivals require that you do 3 x 3 hour shifts over the weekend. If you can get there early and have some extra time you can get your shifts out of the way in the set up and take down. Fancy a bar gig? Get your RSA online. Like working with kids? Apply for your Working with Children Check. Bus driving ? An F Extension on your driver’s licence is all it takes! You get to be part of the fun and enjoy all the music, all while feeling like you are doing something good.

If you would like to read about volunteering at another great WA festival. Fairbridge Festival is a must for volunteers and music lovers alike. https://www.lisabenjess.org/fairbridge-festival-2021-rocking-out-with-the-kids/