Serena Kirby, Denmark Bulletin
Festival of Voice organisers report good attendance for the start of this year’s extended program, traditionally held over three days of the WA Week weekend.
This year’s program is spread across the month’s four weekends. Festival director Matt Eastwell said there were a range of reasons why this was done with COVID-19 issues being the main reason for the change.
When planning for the festival began several months ago, venue capacity was capped at 50 percent. Matt said he wanted to create flexibility for artists and event goers who may have their attendance made impossible due to being in isolation.
Overcrowding in venues, which had the potential to add to virus spread, was another factor of concern.
“Running the festival over four weekends has definitely been the right decision,” Matt said.
“We’ve already had a number of devastated artists needing to cancel but we’ve been able to slot them into other weekends when they are out of isolation.”
This year’s reduced ticket price of $50 has also made the festival more affordable for event goers and Matt reported having reached a goal of 300 tickets sold for the first weekend.
The new festival format has the added benefit of spreading visitors across a usually quiet tourism month and will work to reduce strain on already stretched food outlets.
“Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far and many people have told us that they’ve found the program less stressful as it was previously hard to get around to see everything when it was crammed into one weekend,” Matt said.
“We’ve scheduled many repeat performances of artists so if people miss a first show they will have a second opportunity.” Highlights of the first weekend included a highly emotive performance by Rhian Thomas, Courtenay Stickels and Marie Dwyer at St Leonard’s church.
Perth choir, The Baden Street Singers, also drew a good crowd at both their performances and workshops while Rosie Williamson displayed her powerful vocals as singer with popular local band MoonBass.
The overarching theme of the festival’s third weekend is the spoken word and story telling.
Acclaimed raconteur Fred Smith will present his show, Sparrows of Kabul, on Saturday and will join Adelaide singer songwriter Jen Lush at Sunday’s Civic Centre evening show.
The festival’s fourth and final weekend June 25 and June 26 will have a folk flavour with bigger groups, choirs and bands aimed at creating a folk festival vibe.
The full program and tickets are available from denmarkfestivalofvoice.com.au or by contacting Denmark Arts on 9848 3623.
The article appeared in the Denmark Bulletin, 16 June 2022.
