Merger sparks early festival fever

The Mid West’s peak art body, the Arts and Cultural Development Council, is excited at the planned merger of the historic Sunshine Festival and G-Fest.

G-Fest festival director Raina Savage said the move was a smart one by the City of Greater Geraldton and made the new Festival on the Foreshore a tourism drawcard for the region.

The 10-day event in October will move the Sunshine Festival and G-Fest to one location to make one mega-celebration of arts, culture and diversity.

“Geraldton is made up of a diverse and multicultural community and to merge two festivals will make for an even more exciting and inclusive festival, ” she said. “The G-Fest is about an inclusive festival for everyone, for people with disabilities, Aboriginal community members as well as same-sex people — a place where everyone can feel included.”

“We will hope the new 10-day festival will bring people from around the State with partners like the Comedy Emporium and PCYC back on board this year.”

The vision for G-Fest is an exciting and unique regional festival featuring cutting-edge contemporary arts performances of a national standard, within an inclusive community event that showcases quality local produce and products, celebrates cultural diversity and promotes experienced and emerging local artists and performers.

The Festival on the Foreshore will open on Friday, October 2, and run until Sunday, October 11.

ACDC gallery manager Valli Papini agrees merger of the festivals makes sense.

“We have so much on offer, with an opening night set to be huge, free activities, stalls, circus and even a moonlight pleasure garden for the evening, ” she said.

“This year we have included a classification of events. G is general, all ages; A is adult; Y is youth and C for children — this is the norm for most fringe festivals.

“So many people attended last year and it was a huge success, this will be a huge drawcard for Geraldton to create one large festival — the two festivals won’t be competing but sharing timeslots and days.”

G-Fest is run by the Arts and Cultural Development Council and co-ordinates with the Sunshine Festival and the City of Greater Geraldton.

Comedy Emporium Geraldton’s Julian Canny said: “It combines what is great about things that are uniquely Geraldton — sunshine and the letter G.”