The director's gone, ticket sales are down and it lost $400,000 over Easter - the signs are not good for one of Australia's longest running music festivals.
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But the team behind the National Folk Festival maintains it will come back fighting in 2025, and that its woes are the same as those rippling across the live music sector.
And its president reckons it could always do with more ACT government support.
The festival sold just 30,500 tickets for 2024's four-day event - 1500 fewer than last year - and recorded a massive financial loss that festival president David Gilks conceded was the largest in recent years.
Ticket prices are high, there was a noticeable lack of big-name acts in the line-up, and the venue at EPIC is surely too vast for such a small - albeit dedicated - crowd.
But Mr Gilks maintained the event was still rebounding from the COVID years, and that the next year would be "critical" for the festival's future.
"It's actually about a difference between pre-COVID and post-COVID audience behaviours," he said.
"We certainly have seen a drop-off since COVID in audience numbers, and that drop-off hasn't recovered in the way that we had anticipated and planned for as we came into years like 2024."
He said while the festival had received funding from the ACT government in the past - and from the federal government during COVID - it wasn't enough to address current financial pressures.
"We certainly have had, at different times, levels of support from the ACT government and the federal government," he said.
"I think it is a time, as the festival sector continues to grapple with the situation that we have coming out of COVID and the cost-of-living pressures that are out there for everyone, for government support to be there for events.
"We certainly don't receive the same substantial level of government funding that a number of similar festivals in terms of genre and scale do."
A spokeswoman from the ACT government said it had given the festival around $1 million in direct financial assistance since 2003.
This included $30,000 this year from the ACT event fund, the maximum available from this fund.
Other recent recipients included the upcoming Forage festival ($30,000), the Canberra Comedy Festival ($20,000) and the Canberra Region Truffle Festival ($15,000).
It also had the option of applying for funding from the ACT Major Event Fund of between $50,000 to $500,000, but would need to demonstrate that it could "bring substantial economic benefit for Canberra, through event-based tourist visitation and visitor spend" and "provide opportunities for marketing and promotion of the Canberra region to domestic and international audiences".
The festival did receive $100,000 from this fund in 2022, based on a proposal for a revitalised event. This was when singer Katie Noonan was the festival director, an arrangement that ended last year.
"The National Folk Festival is a much-loved Canberra event, and the ACT government welcomes applications to relevant grants programs from festival organisers," the spokeswoman said.
"As part of its support for the festival, since 2017, the ACT Government has provided around $150,000 in waivers of operational costs like equipment hire, event support and compliance at EPIC and free bus travel for patrons.
"In addition, there has been in-kind support through operational staff and marketing and communications."
Mr Gilks admitted ticket pricing was always a factor, and the festival strived to present a diverse offering for hardcore "folkies" and those who wanted something different.
"We are always looking at our ticket prices to ensure that they deliver value for people who come through the gates," he said.
"I fully accept that a day out at any festival is not a necessarily cheap experience, but we hope to deliver value in the multiple hours of entertainment across multiple stages that all of our attendees get when they attend, either for a day or for the whole weekend."
But how long can a festival rely on its central core of diehard fans who will show up, loyally, year after year before it starts alienating newcomers?
"The festival is an event that's enjoyed by people with a wide variety of interests, across folk music, dance and spoken word, and we strive to put on a program that delivers variety that is attractive to a broad range of people, both those who've been coming to the festival for decades, and those who haven't experienced us before," he said.
In the meantime, management had acted to reduce costs, meaning director Heidi Pritchard, who was only appointed a year ago, was out the door.
Mr Gilks maintained this had nothing to do with her or the festival's performance.
"Heidi was let go because we took a decision that the staffing structure that the festival could afford and the festival needed going forward did not involve the position that Heidi was part of," he said.
"It was not a decision that was made on performance grounds or anything to do with the work that Heidi had been doing for us. We were really sad to see Heidi go, she did a fabulous job for us, building really strong connections with the folk community and the Canberra community, but we had to make really difficult decisions here to focus our staffing on the direct delivery of the festival."
Existing operations manager Anne Denzer has now taken on the director role, while the artistic direction team of Michael Sollis, Chris Stone and Holly Downes, will remain.
As to the lack of big-name or mainstream acts on this year's program, which may have played into ticket sales.
By contrast, the 2023 program included UK legend Billy Bragg and Australian folk-pop stalwarts The Waifs.
But Ms Pritchard defended the decision at the time, saying it was more important to support local and national acts and boost the Australian music sector.
"We've put money back into the economy ... we've made a conscious decision to prioritise Australian performers," she said on the opening night of this year's festival.
"We really try to support our industry. If people won't pay artists, we can't keep being artists."
There was no word yet on what next year's line-up would look like, but Mr Gilks was confident the festival would power on.
"We are moving forward for 2025 and we are doing that relying on the reserves that the festival has had and built over time," he said.
"But it is a critical year for the National Folk Festival, and we are going to be there in 2025 to deliver an exciting product that audiences want to come to."
Sally Pryor
As features editor at The Canberra Times, I love telling people things they didn't know - or even things they've always known - about the city we live in.
As features editor at The Canberra Times, I love telling people things they didn't know - or even things they've always known - about the city we live in.
