Woodford Folk Festival

Festival Location: Woodford, QLD, Australia

Festival Type(s): Folk Festivals , Folk Music Festivals , New Year Celebrations

Festival Photos of Woodford Folk Festival: gallery 1

Woodford Connects Folks Down Under

by © Matthew MacDermott 2008

Australia's Woodford Folk Festival has turned 21 and like any enthusiastic young adult has celebrated its coming of age in great style.

In truth, Woodford, like many other young adults, came of age a little while ago. However, the 21-year milestone is a testament to its success and longevity in a field where many festivals are lucky to make it anywhere near puberty. It also signals a bright future ahead for an event that is well and truly in the prime of its life and possibly holds the keys to a cultural understanding and connection so desperately needed throughout the world.

Woodford, held on Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland one hour north of Brisbane, is now one of the largest folk festivals in the world, hosting more than 2,000 performers and 120,000 visitors from throughout Australia and overseas for six days from December 27 to January 1 each year.

From its birth as a modest festival attended by 900 people at the nearby Maleny Showgrounds, the 21st annual incarnation of Woodford radiates proudly from its magical 360-acre hidden valley site owned by its organisers, the Queensland Folk Federation. This temporary utopian village boasts 22 performance venues, 30 restaurants, 15 bars, countless stalls, huge campgrounds and an atmosphere that effortlessly slows the pace and soothes the soul following the commercial excesses of Christmas.

Having attending the festival several times in recent years, I was drawn back again for an overnight New Year's Eve visit that perfectly blended a reflection on the year gone and a celebration of the promise ahead. A soothing three minutes of candlelit-silence throughout the site at 11.30pm said a moving goodbye to 2006 and a spiritual hill-top sunrise ceremony at 4.30am said hello to the first sun of 2007.

While Woodford is a showcase of all performance and artistic genres, world-class music is still its beating heart and choosing who to see, and who to miss, creates the biggest stresses of the day. On the local music front, we took in pulsating acoustic guitarist and singer Paul Greene, enigmatic pianist and story teller Tim Freedman of The Whitlams, and boisterous blues outfit Backsliders (with Midnight Oil's Rob Hirst on drums). From the world stage, Irish fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes and American guitarist Dennis Cahill reeled and jigged their way through an energetic one-hour set, including a 15-minute opening number. This is just the organised music experiences, complimented by the ever-buzzing hive of musical and theatrical street performers. If music is Woodford's heart, then cultural understanding is the blood flowing through its veins. A panel discussion on Islam, featuring a mix of new and old Australian Muslims and academics, drew a huge audience who opened their ears and minds to every word.

"It is in the spirit of Woodford that a Rabbi introduces a panel discussion on Islam," proclaimed panel moderator, journalist and author of The World of Islam George Negus. He described the need to understand Islam as arguably the world's most important issue and bemoaned that "we do a lot of talking about Islam, but not much talking to Muslims" and the idea of the panel discussion was to help "build bridges of understanding between cultures".

Celebrating the world's diversity as you walk the dusty streets of Woodford and soak up the eclectic sights, diverse sounds and exotic tastes and smells of the village's international foods, against the backdrop of Queensland's bush and brooding storm clouds overhead, it is easy to feel an instant connection to this temporary, idyllic community and forget which reality you are meant to belong to.

Festival Director Bill Hauritz says that connection is perhaps Woodford's greatest achievement. "It seems sometimes that many of us come here, connect into the festival, and then return home to a world and community that disconnects itself from reality," he says. "Yet reality is where we say we go when we go home."

by Matthew MacDermott

Festival Photos of Woodford Folk Festival: gallery 1

Woodford Folk Festival Dates and Location

The Woodford Folk Festival is held annually for 4 days just following Christmas in Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland one hour north of Brisbane. For more information check out www.woodfordfolkfestival.com.