A bridge over troubled musical waters? Fairbridge Festival’s Freo showcase

Following the cancellation of this year’s Fairbridge Festival, Kaleidoscope Multicultural Arts Management (KMAM) is presenting a showcase concert at Fremantle Arts Centre this Sunday, April 7. The program features national and international artists booked for the festival that were unable to change their touring plans.

Being a six-hour show on a single stage rather than a three-day event spread over nine stages, the scope of the concert is limited. Of the 90 acts originally billed for the festival, only five will appear. Even so, it promises to be a fine evening of folk and world music with a dash of poetry and some street theatre that will give the Fairbridge community a glimpse of the festival that could have been.

The featured acts are Scottish-Scandinavian quartet Himmerland, Canadian acoustic duo Gordie Tentrees and Jaxon Haldane, Australian-Canadian collaborators Shark & Fox, street performers Joel Salom (NSW) and Tristan ‘Chipolata’ (UK), and poet raconteur Peter Capp (NSW).

Himmerland perform original new music compositions laced with traditional forms that connect different cultures' stories and musical styles.

Tentrees and Haldane’s ‘brotherly harmonies’ are infused with darkness and light and blend masterly story-telling with an array of acoustic instruments.

Emily-Rose Sarkova and Jaron Freeman-Fox merge tradition and innovation. Their Bulgarian dances, Appalachian tunes, Swedish polkas, and Irish reels are performed on an ever-changing combination of fiddle, fretless guitar, accordion and synthesiser.

Joel Salom’s madcap capers and juggling are legendary. Having recently joined Fairbridge stalwarts The Chipolatas, their frivolity is awesome.

Peter Capp’s uproarious poems and yarns reflect Aussie culture with humour and pathos. He will perform his new folklore bush ballad about Fairbridge Festival’s rich history.

The music acts will be broken into fifty-minute sets, give or take, and the poetry will be somewhat shorter. The music sets are slightly longer than the usual Fairbridge spots and allow the artists a decent amount of time to weave their spell over the crowd.

The concert has been developed by Fairbridge Festival’s artistic director, Jon Cope, as a way to help the touring acts who were most disadvantaged by the festival’s cancellation. Cope noted that these artists were scrambling to drum up Perth gigs to make their visit to WA worthwhile. Rather than competing for the same audience, he realised it would be better to put them all on the one bill.

Cope developed a proposal, which he put to the board of FolkWorld, the organisation that produces and promotes Fairbridge Festival. The board, however, decided it was better to focus its resources and attention on the many tasks associated with the cancellation of its flagship event. Fair enough, the board members are all volunteers with demanding full-time jobs, and the immediate aftermath of a major disruption for which the financial and strategic implications are yet to be fully assessed is not the best time to embark on a potentially risky venture. Once bitten…

Cope, however, ‘wanted to do the right thing by the artists’, especially as he had booked them to come here in the first place. As his FolkWorld engagement is only part-time and he has successfully run his own production company, KMAM, for a decade or more, he had both the time and means to produce the concert. With FolkWorld’s blessing and in-kind support (access to its mailing lists, use of the organisation’s email account, and permission to reference its brand names), he decided to take the risk and go it alone.

The Fremantle Arts Centre is the perfect venue for the concert. Its front courtyard, encircled by limestone walls and the heritage Colonial building, is utterly charming. Shaded by a canopy of leaves, it has hosted many a fine afternoon of quality music. What’s more, it has a similar feel to Fairbridge Village, the traditional site for the Fairbridge Festival, especially the chapel. This is better suited for a Fairbridge showcase than an anonymous indoor performance space.

Although there is a second area at the rear of the Arts Centre where many larger concerts have previously been held, the showcase will be presented in the courtyard alone. The set-up costs of the larger space would change the scale of the event and require much greater attendance. It was decided instead to keep it simple and aim for a moderate rather than a massive audience.

As you would expect with a multi-act event organised in less than a month under somewhat fraught circumstances, there is a certain fog surrounding the showcase. On reflection, Cope admits it may have been more appropriate, given the limited number of acts, to have chosen a name that better reflected the independent nature of the event—‘Touring Folk‘ perhaps.

Moreover, given that the promotional emails were issued from the official FolkWorld account and there are many references throughout the publicity to both the festival and FolkWorld, one could be forgiven for thinking that it is an official FolkWorld fundraiser, like similar showcases have been in the past.

But this is not the case. All proceeds up to the breakeven point are directed to covering the costs of the event and paying a 'retainer’ fee to the artists (40% of their original Fairbridge fee). Any profits above this will be shared between the artists and KMAM. Only when the showcase breaks even will Cope and other key organisers receive payment for their efforts.

FolkWorld will, however, have a fundraising presence at the event. Tickets for the Fairbridge Festival raffle will be on sale, and all proceeds will go to FolkWorld. To encourage people to buy the $5 raffle tickets and support Fairbridge Festival, Cope deliberately set the entry price low: adult $55, youth $25, and kids under 13 are free.

Ticket sales have been strong. Unlike this year’s Fairbridge Festival (and a prime reason why it was cancelled), the advance box office target was reached ahead of schedule, and the show has already moved into profit-share territory. Cope’s risk has paid off. Hopefully, the raffle tickets will sell like Easter eggs and boost FolkWorld’s depleted coffers as well.

With music festivals no longer the safe bet they once were, Cope may inadvertently have hit on a formula that ensures both the audience and presenter’s needs are met. The moot point, though, is whether tickets would have sold as well if the concert had not been so closely aligned with the well-known festival. Nonetheless, if the crowds like it, we may well see more of these small-scale, mixed-bill folk and world music programs in the years ahead. They may prove to be the bridge over some troubled musical waters.

Tickets for the Fairbridge Festival Showcase are on sale through Oztix. There will be bar and food sales on site.

IAN LILBURNE