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Maldon Folk Festival was established in 1974 as a festival for musicians - "somewhere for them to meet and play." As patronage increased, limited costs were covered by donation as a paid dance.
With more artists than available venues, it was necessary to broaden the perspective of the Festival. As a result, Maldon Folk Festival sought and gained more adminstration and assistance through the local coommunity and outside interested bodies such as folk clubs and other Festival organizations.
From 1991 the Festival began to take on a higher profile and became an event at which artists attended in greater numbers.
The Castlemaine Biennial State Festival and associated Festivals became mutually beneficial, drawing larger crowds onto the area and co-operatively sharing the skills of some entertainers.
Corporate and Government sponsorship has enabled us to further improve our facilities and significant changes have occurred in infrastructure, improved advertising and a much larger and varied number of performances.
Recognition from the local community was gained when the Festival was awarded the Australia Day Event of the Year for its efforts.
Now we look forward to improving and developing the Festival into a major Victorian and National event each year.
The establishment of the Maldon Folk Festival as an integral part of Victoria's tourist attractions while retaining the high standard of musicians, involvement and family atmosphere previously enjoyed.
Maldon is a major tourist destination and the further development of the Castlemaine/Maldon Rail link will increase the numbers of tourists throughout the year.
The Festival aims to be active in promoting, developing and fostering Australian and Multicultural Traditional music and dance.
The festival will continue to be an affordable family festival despite economic pressures.
The following is an extract of a testimonial from Eric Bogle AM.
"I can think of no other music festival in Australia that is more worthy of support. In my opinion, the Maldon Festival is the premier "Grass Roots" type of festival in Australia today. The trend in Australia these days seems to be for music festivals that grow larger and more crowded every year, with crowds, costs, and admission charges spiralling forever upwards.
While this has obvious economic advantages for the musicians involved, the sheer size of these festivals tends to make them fairly passive experiences, with the audience and performers acting out their allotted roles without too much inter-mingling.
In stubborn defiance of trends, Maldon Festival continues to try and present an informal, interactive family-based festival, where admission to many events is free, or, where admission is charged, it is a nominal sum only.
It is also very much a community-based festival, with the local townspeople playing an active and supportive role in the festival. Whilst this is not unique within music festivals in Australia, I believe the high level of that support is.
Musicians generally hold the Maldon Folk Festival, and it's philosophy, in high regard, and that regard is evidenced by the fact that most of them provide their services to the festival free of charge, or at most, for travle expenses or a nominal fee.
I myself have performed at the festival on three occasions over the years, and will no doubt be cajoled, cozened, or blackmailed into appearing again in the future! And will do so gladly."