News
19 September, 2024
Woodford stages festival fightback
New figures reveal challenges as $2m lifeline thrown
WOODFORD Folk Festival (WFF) has been handed a $2 million lifeline from the State Government to help shore up the iconic event’s future. It follows an almost knockout blow last year, when millions were lost, as the cost-of-living crisis hit household budgets ,and reports of severe weather events over the week-long festival culminated to crunching ticket sales.
At the same time, festival production costs increased in the order of 30 to 40 per cent. The dire situation of the 2023/24 event has now been laid bare in financial documents, seen by The Sentinel, which reveal auditors found there was “significant doubt” about the ability of the festival to continue. Woodfordia’s board, however, stated that, while the event may not reach pre-Covid heights again, concerted undertakings including job cuts, reduced budgets and reduced infrastructure investment, along with increased grants, will ensure the festival will continue. Financial records for Woodfordia Inc – the notfor-profit owner of the folk festival – showed revenue was hit by a $1.1m fall in box off ice takings, as well as a $1.2m fall in grants from the prior years. Those records show Woodfordia Inc now has $327,000 in cash, compared to $1.87m in 2023, with overall revenue falling from $16.7m in 22/23 to $14.59m in 23/24. The organisation’s total comprehensive income fell from $667,667 to -$1.94m in 2024, with auditor BDO spelling out its concerns.
“We draw attention to … the financial report which describes the events and/or conditions, which give rise to the existence of a material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt about the registered entity’s ability to continue as a going concern, and therefore the registered entity may be unable to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business,” the BDO auditors found. But Woodfordia President, Lachlan Brown, and Treasurer, Ross White, stated that they believed Woodfordia was able to meet its fi nancial obligations, but acknowledged “the current financial position gives rise to the existence of a material uncertainty that may cast doubt on the Entity’s ability to return to its pre-COVID-19 business levels”.
They said the organisation had adopted a “conservative budget strategy” in anticipation of similar ticket sales, compared to the weather affected 2023/24 festival. “The considerable investment made to bring the site back from hiatus during the Covid period will not be required this financial year and has been removed from the budget,” they stated. A $1.6m state government grant to reduce annual hire equipment expenses and maintenance costs, as well as a $400,000 in program funding to “increase the competitiveness of the festival’s line-up” was also helping reduce cost pressures on the event.
Woodfordia also has significant approved funding of $1m per year over the next two years. “The entity has monthly reviews of its expenses against budget and quarterly reports to the Management Committee. This ensures expenses are held to budget across all festival departments,” Mr Brown and Mr White stated. After The Sentinel reached out to Woodfordia organisers, it was announced the State Government would contribute a further $2m into the 2024/25 program, as well as the 500-acre parkland. Site works include all weather pathways and improving drainage in camping grounds, as well as the development of “key event infrastructure”.
“It has always been the goal for Woodfordia to support and facilitate exciting events that enrich the community throughout the year and this vital funding will help us realise this,” Woodfordia’s Managing Director and Co-Founder Amanda Jackes said. “We would like to thank both Premier Steven Miles and Minister for Arts Leeanne Enoch for their strong support. This backing will contribute to making this year’s festival one not to be missed. “At a time when the live music industry and festivals are in crisis, we are so appreciative to have such a strong supporter in the Queensland Government.” Woodfordia organisers will be revealing the line-up for the 24/25 festival in mid October. WOODFORDIA ANSWERS OUR QUESTIONS:
Could you share some insights into the challenges Woofordia faced in 23/24 compared to past events and the current economy?
The impact from the Covid years continues for live music and events. The main challenges remain: The production, insurance reserves to handle the ‘bad’ years. Over our 36 year history, we have delivered a loss from the event six times. For the past 30 years since we have been at Woodfordia, our surpluses have gone into building the infrastructure and funding the town planning work to safely deliver a festival of scale (which is Australia’s 68th largest town when the festival is at its peak).
Over $20m has been invested in infrastructure on the event site with underground plumbing, water and waste-water treatment plants, 64 amenity blocks, electrical networks of 120 distribution poles off 16 NIM’s, offices and storage buildings, all weather roads, pathways and venue pads, 20 glamping cabins, general store, commercial kitchen, solar energy installations and our recreations and habitat lake.
The cost of living crisis means people have less discretionary spending and the arts is often the first to be cut. The international stadium tours of 2024 have had a considerable disruption on the Australian festival scene, with many people choosing an international act stadium experience over a festival one.
The current climate of festivals cancelling has generated a lack of confidence in the industry, with so much negative press and not many good news stories. This creates a lack of confidence in people taking up pre-sales early. We have had to spend over $2m in recommissioning the site after the Covid hiatus years, when we lost over 50 per cent of our staff and the remainder were on Job Keeper alone, which meant a 50 per cent reduction in hours worked.
All of the infrastructure above is annually audited and maintained when the WFF is operating. When that did not happen for 2 years (and only very small events in a small area of the site operated) it meant huge costs to recommission and repair the infrastructure. Just cutting the grass on 500 acres is a huge challenge alone. This $2m in recommissioning is not done and not required again.
The weather appeared to be a significant challenge?
In early December 2023 an intense weather pattern emerged with Cyclone Jasper named on the 5 December, and after intensifying for the next week, made landfall on 13 December. Heatwave conditions were experienced in SEQ in mid-December and again from 27-29 December. From 24-26 December, a series of severe storms impacted SEQ, causing intense rainfall and flash flooding, road closures and significant power outages. The Woodford region experienced electrical storms on 30 December, and then significant rainfall.
Given the severe and extreme weather conditions that impacted many parts of SEQ in the lead up to the festival, we celebrate the numbers we did achieve, which again highlights the strong and ongoing commitment to the festival by the Woodfordia community and patrons, evidenced in a 70 per cent patron return rate.
The challenges did not define the festival. Feedback from audiences, volunteers and other attendees clearly show that 23/24 was memorable for its spirit, its ambience, its excellent programming, enhanced comfort and accessibility, and the communal gift of celebration and joy no matter what the circumstances.
The extreme weather and media hype drastically reduced day ticket sales by 34 per cent. We failed to meet our box office and other commercial trading targets.
How are you addressing the issues from last year to make 24/25 a success?
In many ways ... the festival is built on thousands of small, beautiful decisions by a big team of passionate people, and all these will contribute to delivering a successful celebration. However, the large decisions that will contribute to what we hope will be a successful financial festival this year are:
- We developed an event budget for the attendance we received at the weather impacted event of 23/24 (and capped the level so we maintain patron comfort at the event), which was our smallest festival in many years.
- We have secured strong support from the QLD Government and we hope some further from the federal government.
- We have strong support from our Woodfordia community and our presales for this year are above presales from the pre-Covid years. We are building our other lower risk events like Lake Gkula Camping (held over Easter and Spring school holidays).
Is there any extra support you are seeking or received from state/federal governments?
Yes. We have just received new state support for the festival this year (see main story). We are still waiting on results from Federal Government grants through the REVIVE LIVE initiative, launched by Arts Minister Tony Burke through the Office of the Arts, in response to the crisis in the live music industry.
Are there comparable periods of similar financial challenges?
Absolutely. In fact a number of them. When we first moved from Maleny down to Woodfordia and purchased the land, we had only $40,000 in the bank. We fundraised another $60,000 from our supporters to be able to secure the 240- acre dairy farm. We then did a massive infrastructure build and held a festival. We had significant debts after all this work and we needed to seek permission from our creditors to trade through them. These are some suppliers that are still with us today and help us continue to generate 268 full-time equivalent jobs annually and deliver over $26m economic impact to the Moreton Bay region annually, with over 220,000 vistor nights delivered. During the QLD flood year (2010/2011) we had just spent all our cash reserves on building a sewerage treatment plant onsite (completed in November 2023 at a cost of $3.8m) and we had no cash reserves going into the festival.
The festival experienced an 18 per cent decrease in attendance due to six days and nights of rain at the festival and then the catastrophic floods happened on 10 January 2011. It was a real low point for the organisation. We worked through that and survived.
Find festival tickets and info at https:// woodfordfolkfestival.com/
