One of the biggest weekends of the year was closed out in style, with the Winter Blues Festival Wrap Party taking over Radcliffe’s on Sunday, July 28.
Marking the end of the four-day festival, acts 8 Ball Aitken, Alison Ferrier, Anna Scionti, Dan Sullivan, Frank Sultana, Glenn Skuthorpe, Ian Collard, Marshall Okell, Nathan Beretta and Karl S. Williams jammed with house band Blues Roulette.
A packed audience supported the artists to farewell the Winter Blues for another year.
Festival chairperson Laurelin Berick was delighted to look back at the weekend that was.
“This year has been amazing,” she said.
“The vibe’s been incredible.
“The line-up and the scheduling — every year it’s good, but this year in particular, you couldn’t fault it.
“There was something for everyone.”
The weekend attracted visitors from across Australia, with early crowd estimates reaching well into five figures.
“I suspect that we would’ve had at least 15,000 people,” Ms Berick said.
“If we go by historical data, about 80 per cent of festival visitors are from out of town ... we saw social posts of people leaving from Canberra and flying from Perth.
“We’d love more locals to come and experience this. It’s free!
“You can hang out in a park, you can come with your family and your family will be looked after.
“The locals that I have spoken to have had such a fun time.”
The festival music programmer, Rhythm Section’s Jon Howell, has been a driving force in the planning of Winter Blues, working with artists and venues to put hundreds of shows together.
“It’s all about creating community through live experiences,” he said.
“It’s not just about music. Echuca is a very strong community and the Winter Blues Festival is there to enhance the economic, but also the cultural life here.
“When you see that happening, you know you’re actually doing something good.”
While the team has been marketing the event for Australian music fans across the country, the key audience to win over is the local contingent.
“We’ve been working really hard to put this festival on the map as a national destination,” Mr Howell said
“The last couple of years, we’ve really been focusing on getting locals to visit.
“We’ve done a lot of marketing locally to say, ‘this is your festival, this is your event, come and support it’.”
Winter Blues has been running for 25 years, a staple in the calendar for locals and music fans alike. Mr Howell hopes the festival is not taken for granted.
“It’s been going for 25 years, so people forget,” he said.
“But if events like this don’t happen in the dead of winter, people go broke.”
The team emphasised the need for community support and sponsorship, which helped keep the artists paid and festival going.
“We need to remember what it would be like if this didn’t happen,” Mr Howell said.
“If you see a QR code that says, ‘donate to the Winter Blues Festival’ (or) if every adult in this area donated $5, this festival would keep going for ever.
“The people of Echuca-Moama should be incredibly proud of this.
“It could put Echuca on the map on a global scale. But it needs support.”
Ms Berick said she was grateful for the contributions of venues, sponsors, volunteers and attendees who made the weekend run so smoothly for another year.
She would like to see more businesses and individuals get on board for future events so that they can cover their over $100,000 in operating costs.
For the festival, even small contributions can go a long way.
“We’ve got some very generous sponsors,” she said.
“But we need lots and lots of sponsors, which is a lot of work.
“The festival is iconic and it’s been going for a quarter of a century, so the reputation is established.”
The full list of official venues is the American Hotel, Antonio’s, Beechworth Bakery, Campaspe Library, Cape Horn Winery, The Caledonian Hotel, Echuca Hotel, Echuca Racing Club, Echuca Workers Club, Essen, Henry’s Bridge Hotel, Port of Echuca at Echuca Wharf and PS Pevensey Radcliffe’s, Schnitz, The Shamrock Hotel, Star Hotel, and Star Murray River Providore.
The Winter Blues Festival Committee also hosted artists at the Hopwood Gardens Family Space and the Winter Blues Festival Stage, and official buskers at the Echuca Chocolate Company.