Festival rocking Queenscliff again

THIS year’s edition of the Queenscliff Music Festival (QMF) is now on, and ticketholders will be enjoying an event much closer to the pre-COVID experience.

Officially starting yesterday (Thursday) night, the four-day event will feature more than 60 artists and more than 150 performances across 10 venues.

Speaking to this newspaper on early Tuesday afternoon this week, QMF director Andrew Orvis said it was difficult to explain how ready the event was at that point.

“Everyone always asks how’s it going and when it will be ready – I always tend to say ‘Sunday, when it’s finished’.

“We’ll be ready for the gates opening, but you never want to get too comfortable, because there’s always a few things, a few spanners that get thrown into the mix, a few things that change, and things that move from here to there, but it’s all going according to plan so far.”

He said setting up QMF each year could be likened to “one giant game of Tetris”.

“You’ve got this beautiful greenfield park with very little infrastructure in here, and we bring every single thing in, and then you’ve got to work it all so it all fits, and then you’ve got to work it all so it all comes in at the right time, because if you put that tent up before the coolroom behind it, then you can’t get the coolroom in… all of those kind of things.”

Mr Orvis said this year’s festival felt much closer to a “normal” year than in 2022, the first after the 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled because of COVID-19 restrictions.

“Last year, despite being able to have a normal festival, it still felt a bit different. First time back and everyone was a bit rusty, even the audience was a bit rusty – for a lot of them, it was the first festival or first big outing for a while.

“This year has definitely felt a lot more like a normal year.

“We haven’t had to worry about COVIDSafe plans or all these fun and exciting plans we did for years.”

Tickets are still available for today (Friday, November 24), tomorrow (Saturday, November 25) and this Sunday, November 26.

Australian audiences are continuing to buy tickets at the last minute – a Creative Australia survey in August found 50 per cent booked their last event no earlier than one or two weeks beforehand – but Mr Orvis said the trend had only partly affected sales to QMF.

For first-time QMF attendees, Mr Orvis suggested seeing a band or artist you’ve never heard of – “you might go and see them three times and they’ll be your new favourite band” – as well as enjoying the wider delights of Queenscliff itself over the four days.

For more information, head to qmf.net.au