South Australian Government reveals $10 million fund to back live music and festivals

Looking to revive the state’s live music sector, the South Australian Government is backing a new generation of festivals in the latest round of its $10 million See It Live program.

Aiming to re-establish South Australia’s reputation as ‘The Festival State’, the latest funding round of the See It Live industry investment package sees five live music festivals get a $50,000 boost to rebound after the pandemic.

Launched in June, the See It Live program features a range of measures to help rejuvenate the sector which has struggled through COVID-19.

The latest grants will support new events featuring local and international artists including:

• Juicy Juicy Green Grass (by Beer & BBQ Pty Ltd): combining live music with sustainability and diversity, to be held at the Adelaide University in 2023.

• Vintage Vibes (by Arts & Entertainment South Australia): a live music program featuring international and home-grown artists alongside local food and wine, to be held at Tomich Wines in 2023.

• Stonecutters (by Five Four Entertainment): a hard rock and punk music festival in mid-2023.

• Myponga Music Festival (by VRS Event Productions): an anniversary celebration of the Myponga Pop Festival first held in 1971 to be held in 2023.

• Fats’ Beach Party (by Fat Controller Club): a summer 2023 music festival hosted on the foreshore at Glenelg featuring international, Australian and local talent.

The $10 million See It LIVE package includes: a voucher scheme; $250,000 for mental health support programs; venue upgrade financing; a live music advisory council; $500,000 grant to the Royal Adelaide Show to bring back its live music program, and an events cancellation fund.

Among the events, the Myponga Music Festival is a millennial-aimed tribute to South Australia’s first outdoor music festival in January 1971, held over three days in a cow paddock in a Myponga dairy farm on the Fleurieu Peninsula, bought by promoter Hamish Henry of Grape Organisation and Music Power for the event.

The bill included international act Black Sabbath along with leading Australian festival acts Daddy Cool, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, Moonshine Jug and String Band (later The Angels), Spectrum, Chain, and Jeff St John’s Copperwine with Wendy Saddington.

An official 15,000 attended, paying the $6 entry fee but another 5,000 jumped the fence, bringing the total to 20,000.

The 2023 version will be held late October or early November at the Myponga Memorial Community Club Oval complex to an audience of 10,000 to 11,000.

It will be produced by Adelaide Live Events (ALE) comprising of Hamish Henry and Victor Marshall from the Grape Organisation, Rob Pippan from Rob Pippan Productions and Scott Rich of Richfam Productions.

Pippan advised “it will pay homage to the original festival in that we’ll have mostly cutting-edge new rock bands the way it had over 50 years ago

Commenting on the See It Live program, South Australia Minister for the Arts, Andrea Michaels stated “the demand for every element of the recovery package is a testament to the need for this level of support.

“We are doing exactly what we said we’d do when we launched (the) package in June.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, our live music scene has witnessed major job losses, the cancellation of thousands of major events and artists performances and closure of many small businesses.”