THE CONTINUED lockout of Melbourne visitors from regional Victoria has sparked a plea from organisers of the ninth Ballarat International Foto Biennale for locals to come out in droves to support the \u201cvery affordable\u201d world-class event.<\/p>\n
This year, for the first time ever, visitors to the festival can buy either a single day pass – midweek $18, weekend $24, or a three-day pass – $30 to $36 – that includes entry into the Linda McCartney: Retrospective<\/em> exhibition, as well as unlimited entry to all core program indoor exhibitions.<\/p>\n Festival artistic director Fiona Sweet said with \u201cpotentially many people who can’t come because they’re locked down\u201d, the renowned event cannot rely on \u201cwhat would normally be quite a big audience from around Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI encourage our local community, which extends to all the regional towns as well, to buy a ticket,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat’s really interesting is that there\u2019s a beautiful sense of pride when you go to see something in your own town – that’s what I love about doing things here in Ballarat.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s also very rare that you can have an exhibition anywhere in the world right now, not just an outdoor festival on a billboard, but actually being able to intentionally walk into a space to see the works.\u201d<\/p>\n With the image of coronavirus lockdowns still fresh in everyone\u2019s collective memories, Ms Sweet said festival organisers were working hard to make the events COVID safe.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve put in place some really clever COVID strategies for the festival and because we didn’t have it last year, at the heart of the lockdown, we had a lot of time to really consider what we were doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have more people in the program, I thought there might be fewer, but in fact, more people want to be exhibiting because they’ve had less opportunity to.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s such a broad appeal. When you buy that ticket, there’s 12 exhibitions for the price of one.\u201d<\/p>\n