Lorne Falls Festival makes the move to Mount Duneed

DEVASTATING bushfires meant Falls Festival had to move from a farm with years of permanent infrastructure to a big blank canvas. And it was no easy feat.

Falls Festival Site

THEY say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the Falls Festival at Mount Duneed Estate was built in two.

Simon Daly, who founded Rock Above the Falls in 1993, has told the Geelong Advertiser of the mammoth effort it has taken to move a four-day event from a Lorne farm with years of permanent infrastructure to a larger, blank canvas.

Gates opened ahead of schedule at the Pettavel Rd winery on Monday, after crews “set up from scratch” two stages, toilets, shade and medical tents, bars, camping grounds and car parks.

With most businesses closed over the Christmas break, electricians and builders were recruited over the Falls Festival Facebook page.

The decision to relocate was made at the Surf Coast Shire offices on Boxing Day, after bushfires raged in surrounding suburbs and destroyed homes in Wye River and Separation Creek.

But Mr Daly said losses from cancelling the event would have made future Lorne Falls Festivals impossible.

“In the meeting we just looked at each other and said we have 16,500 people coming, almost half from interstate who’ve booked flights and people arriving by cars on road trips who are already in Victoria,” he said.

“We also really wanted the festival to happen again, it’s an important part of our region, so everybody was instantly in agreeance that we just had to work out how to pull this off.”

While the Lorne farm was untouched by the fire, Mr Daly said they didn’t want to put more strain on the local community and were forced to look at alternate sites.

By 3pm Saturday a decision was yet to be made, with potential venues at Meredith and Hanging Rock ruled out as one was facing bushfire threats of its own and the other was too far away.

Mr Daly said it was important to keep the event local as artists and production crews had been booked at nearby hotels, and having it at Hanging Rock would have “sucked all of that out of the town”.

Mount Duneed Estate was eventually recruited with help from the A Day on the Green organisers, and neighbouring farms were locked in as camping grounds to create an extra 1500 capacity.

Geelong and Surf Coast councils and various levels of governments were involved in the relocation effort.

“No doubt just the red tape alone for an event like this would take a year in planning and approvals, and to get all of that knocked over in a couple of days has been phenomenal,” Mr Daly said.

“There were no tensions at all, just teamwork, right from the beginning and some great people at the top there across all levels.

“Our energy very much from day one was to get ourselves covered, now we’ve got the site done our energy has turned to how we can help our community and that’s really important.

“Not wanting to stretch ourselves but at the same time wanting to help our community, we offered an extra 1000 tickets for New Year’s Eve and every single dollar we make from that goes straight to community support,” Mr Daly said.

Proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross Appeal to assist in fire relief for affected residents, along with $20 from any extra car passes.

The $100 one-day tickets give punters access from 10am Thursday to see bands such as Foals, Meg Mac, Lurch and Chief, Django Django, Gang of Youths, Little May and Birds of Tokyo.

Mr Daly said they would be making an announcement soon as to whether the tickets included camping.

One-day New Year’s Eve tickets can be purchased via the festival website.

Originally published as Lorne Falls Festival makes the move to Mount Duneed