$120,000 grant puts swing back into National Folk Festival's step

The National Folk Festival has received a welcome boost to its financial fortunes with a $120,000 grant from the Federal Government.

The Revive Live grant is part of $7.7 million in funding announced by Arts Minister Tony Burke for Australia’s live music industry.

The National Folk Festival is one of 110 organisations, including 61 festival-based activities and 49 live music venues, to benefit from the funding.

The grant will support the festival’s presentation of original Australian artists, as well as enhancing accessibility for patrons.

A $450,000 loss from the 2024 festival resulted in the departure of Director Heidi Pritchard in an organisational shake-up to save money and a rethink of its footprint for 2025.

Festival President David Gilks said the funding came at an important time for the festival as it prepares to stage the 2025 event next Easter at Exhibition Park.

“It’s really fabulous to have the support from the Federal Government through Revive Live and to see them stepping up and supporting live music in Australia, including the festival sector, which obviously has suffered a lot over the last few years.” Mr Gilks said.

“Revive Live provides critical support to enable us to showcase more of our home-grown talent and bring that talent to everyone who attends through improvements to site accessibility.”

Artists Thom Jackson and Daisy Kilbourne, both of whom will be performing at the festival next Easter, welcomed the news.

“Festivals like the NFF are why many musicians, including myself, picked up an instrument in the first place,” Mr Jackson said.

“They showcase the best of humanity, both on and off the stage, and are vital for sharing our stories, art, skills and ideals. Grants like this help keep the heartbeat of our country going strong into the future.”

Ms Kilbourne said the grants offered hope to young musicians like herself.

“It’s heartbreaking to see, especially as a young musician, that live music is being hit so hard,” she said.

“But hearing of grants like this makes me hopeful that live music will soldier on. It’s nice knowing that there are people who want live music to continue to thrive and that there are people in your corner who all want to come together under the power of music.”

The festival was but one of many live music events that suffered losses or had to close due to a fall-off in patrons in the post-COVID cost of living fallout.

The government is responding to pleas from the music industry for support to keep events going and artists performing.

The festival joined many in making a submission to the ongoing House of Representatives Inquiry into Australia’s live music scene.

“We were upfront in our submission about the need to support community-based festivals, which do so much to foster our creative community and provide platforms for emerging artists,” Mr Gilks said.

“The response to this grant round shows the government is listening and we are very appreciative of the funding boost.”

Mr Gilks said this support, together with the festival restructure and an encouraging number of ticket sales, meant the festival was on a firmer footing to stage the 2025 event.

“This year has been about setting our overall finances in a place where they work with what might be a new normal in terms of festival attendance, and so we’re tracking well against that,” he said.

“There are people who’ve seen the lineup and are really excited and coming back, but we’ve also got plenty of repeat attendees as well.”

Mr Gilks was hopeful of further assistance to flow from the Federal Government, but the festival would also be in talks with the new ACT Government about what help it could offer.

He said the festival premises were still on the market, but costs had been reined in enough to not be reliant on a sale.

While next year’s event would look a little differently with a reconfiguration of the site, Mr Gilks said it would be everything that patrons had come to expect from the National Folk Festival: “lots of variety on stage at any given time and the mix of music, dance, spoken word and session experiences for people to participate in.”

The festival is expected to make a fifth line-up announcement next week.