David De Santi / Bettina Richter

SNOWY MOUNTAINS OF MUSIC A GREAT SUCCESS

With big crowds, fantastic music and even a surprise snowfall, the Snowy Mountains of Music festival held last weekend at Perisher has been a huge success.



Over 2500 people attended the 1st Snowy Mountains of Music over the opening weekend of the Australia ski season (5-8 June), across 11 fabulous venues around Perisher Valley, Smiggin Holes and Guthega.

Festival goers departed with a weekend to remember – with overwhelming comment on how great the festival was with its musical diversity and energy. The cosy atmosphere of the venues and the snow falling made for an amazing experience.

With 45 acts from around the country in 150 concerts there were plenty of late night jams with people packing the floor for some late night grooving with African group Usutu (pictured), the Gold Coast’s A French Butler Called Smith, and Sydney party band Azadoota. The biggest crowds were drawn to our headlining acts with hundreds lining up at the door to witness the terrific performances of The Audreys and Tex Perkins at Smiggins Hotel and Jax at Perisher.



The kids festival held in the Perisher Centre was a great success with lots of singing, dancing, puppets and circus fun with over 300 children over the weekend attending.

The poetry side of the festival was very popular with festival-goers. The Broken Ski Award had over 30 entries with the winner being Lee Taylor-Friend from Jindabyne. The live festival poetry recitation, The Snowy Poetry Cup, was won by Zondrae King of Corrimal. Junior champion was Sam Glover.



The festival finished with a huge finale with over 40 of the festival’s artists performing on the Smiggins stage and festival-goers joining in with old skiing songs whilst the snow continued to fall outside.

The team of 60 committee and volunteers, with great assistance from the wonderful folk from Perisher, managed to stage all the events without hiccups with 2 days and 43 centimetres of fresh snow!

The festival team will meet over the next few weeks to determine the structure of the 2010 Festival.

Some of the comments from attendees:

The weekend was nothing short of amazing, and we will definitely return if it runs again next year.The whole festival was brilliant! We came with no expectations, so we weren’t disappointed, and had THE BEST TIME.

Christine

A “HUGH THANK-YOU” for giving Sue and me the chance to experience such a brilliant weekend at Perisher. The music festival was excellent (we saw a number of acts in Perisher, the SunDeck, Smiggins etc), with the highlight of my year-to-date being a photo opportunity and chat with the wonderful Taasha Coates and the experience of watching this amazing band live. It was an awe-inspiring evening in Jax.

Greg