The assignment finally came together, and had to be designed to a specific text outlet. I chose local street press Rave Magazine, which I believe I emulated fairly closely. See for yourself.
Journalism In Text: Writing
March 17, 2011
In semester 2010 I took a course I thoroughly enjoyed, titled Journalism In Text. Apart from further extending my writing abilities, it also involved in the use of InDesign, a program which before the course I had never used before. I mostly took to the program like a duck to water and achieved some of my finest marks for course assignments. The writing for the course, which came together to form one large assignment, is here below.
Splendour Leaks Promise Larger-Scale Event
With announcements for the annual July-August festival Splendour In The Grass festival just around the corner, the line up is beginning to leak to the public. The festival, normally held in Byron Bay, has found a temporary home at Queensland’s Woodford site and has extended itself to three days. Now that the festival has a bigger site and a bigger audience to potentially grasp, how will the line up be affected?
Despite no official announcement, the bands that have been revealed to be playing the festival means Australians are in for a much larger scale event with names such as New York’s The Strokes and alternative rock legends the Pixies.
The Pixies, who have recently completed a tour of Australia, were confirmed through lead singer Black Francis’ official twitter where he wrote “So long, Brisbane. See you this summer!” after announcing a one-off show in New Zealand on August 3.
The Strokes, the garage rock quartet are scheduled to play festivals worldwide in 2010.
Now, Frontier Touring has announced Australian dates for the band on the 29th and the 30th of July. These hover extremely close to the festival’s weekend making them certain to appear as headliner. Texans Midlake were also confirmed in February with guitarist Eric Pulido telling online publication FasterLouder: “I know we’re going to be there in July for the Splendour In The Grass festival.”
Other confirmed bands include Melbourne’s The Temper Trap and English folk group Mumford and Sons, while unconfirmed rumours include legends Smashing Pumpkins and electronic acts Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem. All three are playing Japanese festivals Summersonic and Fuji Rock respectively, both of which have similar dates to Splendour. Whether or not they will make the trip down to Australia remains to be seen. While nothing is confirmed until an official announcement, most likely sometime this month, the festival already promises to be a huge weekend.
- William Hunter
Where Did The Lost Weekend Go?
The Lost Weekend Festival was supposed to set a benchmark for Brisbane: it boasted an ambitious line up of local and international talent at a site never before used. William Hunter investigates where it all went wrong.
The announcement of Lost Weekend on November 3 last year came to the shock and pleasure of many punters around Brisbane. The size of the line-up was unprecedented; it was a large, unestablished festival which was to take place at Ivory’s Rock Conference Centre, on 800 hectares of bushland at Boonah, south- west of Brisbane. The festival was to take place over the weekend of the 5th to the 7th of March and would feature acts such as the Brian Jonestown Massacre, alternative legends Dinosaur Jr. and many more. These international bands were complimented with local acts such as Gyroscope and The Drones amongst others. But, as became more apparent in the lead up weeks, the future of the festival looked bleak.
Lost Weekend had been marketed and seen as an alternative to Victoria’s well established Golden Plains Festival, which takes place over the same weekend. Both events shared acts including Dinosaur Jr., Dirty Projectors and several others. Despite that, the organisers of Lost Weekend were determined to make it their own by including obscure acts such as electronic musician Tim Hecker, Deerhoof and the Japanese Tenniscoats. The number of different acts that catered to different markets made it seem like Lot Weekend would be a assured success.
But, doubts began to be shadow the whole festival. While heavily promoted throughout Brisbane, sales were stagnant. The announcement that the festival would be moved to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens on February 8, with organisers providing little justification came with trepidation about whether the festival could successfully move in time. Camping was no long an option and the festival was shortened to two days. In order to respond to doubts, the promoters even went so far to release a timetable for the festival. Lost Weekend had faced many obstacles, but it seemed that the festival would push through these and go ahead.
However, on the 27th of March this year, the promoters of Lost Weekend released a statement announcing that the festival had been cancelled. According to the official website, “after moving from Ivory’s Rock to the Brisbane River Stage, The Lost Weekend has had insufficient time to achieve critical mass.” A representative for the festival claimed that the festival had been given every chance to succeed and although tickets sales had been strong, they were not enough to fund the costs of the move to the Botanical Gardens.
The festival seemed appealing in every way: 160 dollars for two days of camping was well priced and as the weeks rolled out announcements continued to be made. It was a complimentary festival and the promoter’s attempt to bring Brisbane its own Golden Plains-like festival. In light of this, there were a number of factors which lead to its inevitable demise.
Festivals were reaching a saturation point in the Queensland area around the summer period. Lost Weekend was forced to compete for the wallets of potential attendees of the Gold Coast’s Big Day Out, Laneway Festival, Soundwave and many others, all of which take place at the same time of year. The introduction of a non- established festival was always going to be a problem in the area, although Lost Weekend Spokesperson and Representative Marc Mancini believed this was not the issue which held the festival back.
“There’s always new room for festivals,” Mancini said. Despite this opinion, he always believed it was going to be an uphill battle. “I think it is a little bit harder for newer festivals to break through as easily because there are so many festivals out there now,” he added.
The cancellation of the festival also raises questions about the music scene in Brisbane and its ability to accommodate obscure festival choices. Lost Weekend’s main competition came from festivals such as Big Day Out, which have a much broader appeal to punters in the local Brisbane and Gold Coast area.
The established nature of these festivals also makes them certain successes.
Mancini further stated that “the camping concept [of the festival] may have been hard for some metro music lovers to swallow.” The camping concept is one that is extremely successful in the Victorian music market with festivals such as the Meredith Music Festival and Golden Plains, one which Mr. Mancini believes may never be appropriate for the Brisbane market. “Potentially it could be a different audience and it’s never going to work here,” Mr. Mancini said.
In October a different festival will again attempt to utilise the site, with the locally organised and promoted BAM! Festival. The festival will take place over three days in October, and will provide a mixture of entertainment acts over its duration. While no spokesperson would comment on the failures of the Lost Weekend festival, it is being marketed as a ‘24 hour music festival’ with 60 hours of entertainment packed in to the three days. Whether the festival succeeds remains to be seen, but the outcome of this festival may determine the future of camping festivals in the local Brisbane area.
The Lost Weekend’s failings came as a huge blow to the music scene of Brisbane. It dared to provide an alternative to the many festivals that dominated the Brisbane market, and it was this prospect of disrupting the established which led to its ultimate demise. However, Brisbane music fans have much to look forward to in the future. In the near distance is popular camping festival Splendour in the Grass, moved north temporarily from Byron Bay to Woodford, and the upcoming BAM! Festival which attempts to do what Lost Weekend couldn’t: birth a successful new festival on the lush green terrain of the Ivory’s Rock site. All that remains from the fallout of the Lost Weekend festival is the stinging thought of what could have been.
- Will Hunter
(Note: Some errors may be within the text which were ironed out for the final part of the assignment.)
GP Superclinic Video Story
March 17, 2011
Back in semester 2 2010 I did a video presentation on GP superclinic program for a Visual Journalism course. I thought it turned out pretty well. You can see it below.
