Daylesford and Macedon Ranges’ inaugural wellness festival, which was set to take place from November 14-18, has been cancelled due to organisational challenges and unforeseen financial costs.
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The ambitious event, which was being creatively co-directed by renowned singer Kate Ceberano and artist David Bromley, was set to include almost 100 events that celebrated the region’s unique identity, through the themes of lifestyle and wellness, music, food and the arts.
Chair of Daylesford Macedon Tourism Association, Noel Harvey, said the board was disappointed but was well aware of the risks when it took on the ambitious vision of the festival.
“There were significant increases in the cost of running the festival as a result of some of the events that were brought on board but we also had a significant shortfall in the sponsorship target we had hoped for.
“We always knew it was going to be a very tight cash flow situation but because of increased costs, we obviously weren’t able to make it over the line,” Mr Harvey said.
“In an ideal world, we would have made the decision earlier and it would have had less of an impact but we firmly believed that it was do-able.”
Mr Harvey said the substantial state government funding was to produce the Live. Love. Life. event in 2018, 2019 and 2020, so the festival did not receive the $450,000 up front.
“We are still going through the process of determining how much of that amount was actually spent out of the amount we were given to put on the festival this year,” he said.
He said the board was aware there was also a significant cost to their reputation as a result of cancelling the festival, so had decided to support the community by coming up with another, less costly, wellness experience.
Instead of the festival, community members who were holding events alongside the festival are able to do so from November 16-18 in what is now being dubbed the Live. Love. Life Weekend.
“We had a whole lot of events being curated by the festival itself as well as events that would be associated with us, which were individual groups that came on board but were going to hold their own events in their own facilities or in their own businesses,” Mr Harvey said.
“A number of those operators had invested a significant amount of time, energy and money to run an event so although we have decided to cancel the festival as such, we have encouraged those operators to continue on with their own events under the name of a Live.Love.Life Weekend.
Mr Harvey said he could not say if the festival, as it was envisioned, would be put on next year.
“We had a three year vision and we originally said we would postpone it and start it next year… we really considered that but it wasn’t an option. I’d love to say we could pick it up again but I think maybe going forward, it is something we will need to do a really big analysis on to see what we can learn about a) what went wrong so that we don’t do it again and b) what are the opportunities going forward.
“I think a really good way to go would be to start it local and let it grow organically rather than trying to go off with a bang as we have done in this instance,” he said.