If These Walls Could Talk

Splendour in the Grass. If Dark Mofo is the great southern mid-winter festival then it’s safe to say that Splendour in the Grass, nestled in the rolling hills of the North Byron Parklands, offers a mid-winter festival of more moderate conditions for a more millennial crowd.

Like many festivals Splendour in the Grass 2020 and 2021 have been postponed due to COVID; but having evolved from a two-day festival in 2002, to three days in 2009, and ultimately taking the mantle of Australia’s largest music festival, Splendour in the Grass is a survivor, with a proven heritage of weathering storms.

We speak to Jade Skelly, General Manager of Splendour in the Grass and hear of her experience in creating Splendour XR one of the largest and most imaginative pivots of the pandemic and a sublime master class in how to keep a festival alive and a thrilled audience engaged.

Isol-Aid. Born as a response to the COVID 19 pandemic, Isol-Aid is both an online music festival and community, profiling musicians – who would otherwise have had shows, launches, tours, and other appearances cancelled – to create content stream it to an audience otherwise lacking in one of the greatest gifts of all; live music.

Isol-Aid’s Emily Ulman pulled together the weekend-long online music festival on Instagram within an incredibly short period of time.

Over a year later, Isol-Aid averages 35,000 weekly viewers, featuring nearly 900 artists to date and over 356 hours of streams.

Emily talks about a community built around Isol-Aid, the relationships that formed online, that have continued offline, and how the festival itself has transitioned to a regular paid platform for artists; many who so desperately needed the support.

Strawberry Fields - Based on the banks of the meandering River Murray in NSW, is an annual celebration of art, sound and creative expression normally held for three days each summer.

Rooted as deep as the gum trees under which the festival is held, is it’s connection to community; in the past they have supported a Low Income Ticket Program in which festival goers who are socially or economically disadvantaged can apply for a half-priced ticket and as well have previously partnered with Humantix – a ticketing platform that donates all booking fees towards programs aimed at closing the education gap globally.

Strawberry Field’s Tara Benney, makes her actions speak louder than her words, since the creation of the festival when she was only 19, she has carved a new niche in Australia’s bush doof scene in which festival goers really are encouraged to take nothing but memories and leave nothing but footprints, by championing inclusivity and sustainability and encouraging festival attendees to minimise waste such as the wasteland of cheap tents which haunt the last days of other larger festivals.

Secret Garden. Secret by name, secret by nature, this was a festival where attendees like to be challenged & surprised, loyally waiting for the line up to be announced only when the event is sold out.

After an incredible 11 year journey, Secret Garden closed its doors in 2019 ending its run on a high note and being fondly remembered as a festival which bucked the trend at every step.

In this episode we speak to Clare Downes, Festival Director and learn how the festival was created by and for an incredibly talented and eclectic team of technicians, creatives and artists, who came together for 48 hours once a year in order to celebrate the arts and each other.

Big Day Out. The big one, the festival that created an international name and managed to woo the biggest acts of their time to Australian shores.

From Nirvana in 1992, to Metallica in 2004, System of a Down in 2002 and Silverchair’s landmark 2008 performance, everyone has a Big Day Out story; and no one was unmoved by the eventual demise of the festival which put Australia on the map.

In our kickoff episode we speak to Sahara Herald; an Australian festival powerhouse. Sahara was the National Event Coordinator for the Big Day Out for a staggering 18 years, right at the coalface of delivering what was then the biggest touring festival in the world.

Sahara speaks about her experience in the early days working out of small terraced house with the festivals creators, setting her on a path which led all the way to dancing on stage with the Flaming Lips dressed in a bear costume.

In season three of If These Walls Could Talk by Red Bull we pen an audio love letter to some of Australia's most iconic music festivals and the women who helped shape them. From stalwarts like The Big Day Out and Splendour In The Grass to relative newcomers Secret Garden and a product of the pandemic, Isol-Aid we profile the incredible individuals and the wild stories behind the scenes of some of Australia's most well-known musical rights of passage.

Al Grigg joins Heaps Gay's Kat Dopper on a mission to find a new space for an upcoming Heaps Gay event. This mission, is one that is becoming more and more regular for Kat and her team as they seek to overcome the issues with the over-development of Sydney's CBD and gentrification of their street party spaces that make finding a safe and unique space for a queer party an increasingly more challenging prospect.

Al Grigg meets up with Bhenji Ra, House Mother of House of Sleep and a driving force behind Sydney's voguing scene. Bhenji explains how she learnt about the ballroom scene and voguing while living in New York and using this as her inspiration on her return to Sydney to start organising balls, as eventually starting her own house - House of Sle - and becoming the house’s mother and fostering the next generation of voguing talent in Australia.

Host Al Grigg sits down with Farren Heitt, 'reigning matriarch' at the Imperial Hotel in Erskineville. One of the stalwarts of Sydney's gay scene Farren has played an active role since the days of Dawn O'Donnell and still regularly performs at The Imperial with now two decades of drag children beneath her.

It's been described as described as ‘the gay bar in gay Sydney’. But for Craig 'Polly Petrie' Petrie it was a place to call home. Starting as a glassie, then bartender, then in the cocktail bar, he eventually morphed in to becoming a performer - starting his act Polly's Follies. In this episode Craig regales us with stories from behind the bar about customers, the vibe of the times, the nightlife and then performing his very own drag show.