A new music festival may rise in the wake of the cancellation of the Falls Festival at Marion Bay

Music fans may still get to party over New Year’s with a businessman and philanthropist mulling the idea of holding a festival on the East Coast.

A WEALTHY tourism entrepreneur is considering pulling together a music festival at his East Coast property to fill the void left by the cancellation of the popular Falls Festival.

Graeme Wood, the founder of travel website wotif.com and owner of the Spring Bay Mill eco-tourism and events site at Triabunna, has told the Sunday Tasmanian a music festival with local talent could be an option.

“The fall of the Falls Festival is terrible news for the East Coast in particular and Tassie in general,” Mr Wood said.

“It has been a fixture in people’s calendars for many years and is a great drawcard for interstate visitors. We’ve been mulling a Tassie talent-based music festival at Spring Bay Mill to fill that late December timeslot on the East Coast.”

FALLS FESTIVAL MARION BAY 2020 CANCELLED

Thousands of music fans have been left in the lurch by the cancellation of the Falls Festival at Marion Bay, New Years Eve. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

Organisers of the Falls Festival confirmed last week that the Tasmanian leg at Marion Bay would be cancelled.

It was a bitter pill for music lovers, with other mainland festivals under the Falls banner set to go ahead, despite a second wave of COVID-19.

In 2012, philanthropist Mr Wood donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Falls Festival in Tasmania to ensure its survival after it was refused state government funding.

Mr Wood now owns the former Spring Bay Mill site at Triabunna, which has been transformed into a function and events space with two performance sites and accommodation.

“We can exploit the mill’s wonderful new infrastructure and acres of space to meet all that good social distancing,” he said.

Graeme Wood at the former Triabunna mill site, which is now the Spring Bay Mill eco-tourism and events site.

Tasmanian musician Sam Hunn, who has performed at Falls with his band Verticoli, said he understood the organisers’ decision to cancel this year’s Marion Bay event.

Now a junior doctor working at a hospital in Geelong, Dr Hunn said he hoped the decision would help shore up Falls’ future in Tasmania.

“We’d all like to get back to Tasmania to perform and see family but it doesn’t look like that’s going to be feasible for a while,” he said.

Mona Foma curator Brian Ritchie said that the festival, jointly funded by Mona owner David Walsh and the state government, would go ahead this summer, with information about the line-up drip-fed as border updates were announced.

“It’s difficult to plan because of the constantly shifting goalposts,” Mr Ritchie said. “Australia has so much talent and so many immigrants so it [the closed international border] doesn’t mean Mona Foma is going to look like a Bunnings sausage sizzle, we’ll still have international music.”

Mona Foma festival curator and the bassist from Violent Femmes Brian Ritchie.

Mr Ritchie, who was supposed to be touring this year with the Violent Femmes, said this year’s festival would be about supporting performers and the community.

“We usually rely on a lot of people from interstate and that won’t happen as much this year so we’ll be hoping for support from Tasmanians and I think we’ll get it,” he said.

Mr Ritchie said the loss of the Marion Bay Falls Festival was “a major blow” to all the support workers, from ground staff to lighting technicians.

Meanwhile, a Facebook post has raised hopes of another end-of-year event.

On Wednesday evening, northern Tasmanian festival Party in the Paddock posted on its Facebook page: “Hey Tassie … So, what’s our plan for NYE???”