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Late in 2004, FestNet received funding through Arts Victoria’s Local Festivals program to undertake an innovative project aimed at strengthening regional festivals’ capacity to deliver exciting arts programming. Called Directions, the project comprised six regional festivals being mentored by three experienced artistic directors familiar with working in regional Victoria . The project will culminate in the New Directions Regional Festivals Forum to be held in conjunction with Castlemaine State Festival on Sunday 3 rd April. – see FestNet News to find out more and register!

The mentors (Caroline Stacey, Artistic Director for Castlemaine State Festival, Santha Press, artist and former Director of Winterfest in Warburton and Jason Cross, co-Director of Big West Festival), assisted each festival committee in developing their unique artistic vision and how this related to their available resources and communities.

Through interviews with participants, Deakin University ’s Bowater School of Management and Marketing documented the process, creating individual case studies of each festival, such as the following case study of Moss Vale Music Festival, mentored by Santha Press. The case studies will be profiled through the FestNet newsletter over the next couple of months and permanently available on the web site as they are published.

Moss Vale Music Festival Case Study
By Ruth Rentschler and Anne-Marie Hede, Deakin University

 Moss Vale Music Festival is a ‘world music festival’. The festival, in its fourth year, is held in the historic Moss Vale Park , South Gippsland , in March. The organisers, a co-operative of three volunteer arts organisations have been successful in attracting well-known musicians to perform at the one-day festival.

Download Case Study (13k Acrobat PDF)