Melbourne indie boutique festival Sugar Mountain has been conspicuously absent from the ream of summer festival season announcements.
Despite the 2013 edition announcing its lineup – featuring the likes of Dirty Projectors, Action Bronson, ESG, Boomgates, HTRK, and Kirin J Callinan – in September last year, there’s been no word from the Sugar Mountain team in recent months of a return next year (aside from the announcement of Sugaryama, the “globetrotting little sister” of the festival).
Rather than quietly folding – as some rumours had circulated – Sugar Mountain has instead been working diligently behind the scenes on a re-launch, including a new partnership with the Mushroom Group and a move away from the festival’s traditional home at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre.
While the Sugar Mountain 2014 lineup, date, and further details are forthcoming, the festival organisers To and Fro – Tig Huggins, Pete Keen, Brett Louis, and Nicci Reid – have confirmed the fourth edition of the boutique event will be presented in a new partnership with Frontier Touring promoter and booking agent Gerard Schlaghecke and Mushroom Group’s Matt Gudinski, as FasterLouder reports.
The Mushroom Executive Director, along with his legendary promoter father Michael Gudinski, make Sugar Mountain the latest addition to their new festival folio – following on from their joint venture with Future to present Good Life and the titular Future Music Festival, as former companies tied with the annual events entered liquidation. “We were always planning on continuing this year regardless of any partnership. We also knew how much of an impact a joint venture can have on a business…”
“Sugar Mountain is a festival that many staff from the Group have attended and admired for the past few years,” Matt Gudinski says in a statement issued today.
“This is an opportunity for us to continue to diversify Mushroom Group’s reach in the live music world but most importantly to get involved and help evolve an event that we love and believe in. Mushroom will bring a lot to the table while leaving Sugar Mountain’s unique artistic vision with those who have driven it since day one.”
To And Fro’s Tig Huggins, of indie Melbourne label Two Bright Lakes, tells FasterLouder that the partnership with Mushroom has been in the works before even the Future alliance, since this year’s edition of Sugar Mountain in January, and promises an “unparalleled, visceral festival experience” for its 2014 return.
“We were always planning on continuing this year regardless of any partnership,” says Huggins. “We also knew how much of an impact a joint venture can have on a business – these things can take time and a considerable amount of effort to get right, so we wanted to make really smart decisions about the year.”
Huggins explains that Mushroom’s history with larger scale events (eg. the Hanging Rock concerts, Frontier Touring’s blockbuster tours) will help expand Sugar Mountain into the future.
“We’re obviously going to be keeping an open mind about any opportunities that arise,” he says, “[but] we’re very conscious of building a strong and sustainable festival that focuses on the experience for the ticket-holder.”
“We’ll just keep assessing it each year. We’ve always been very keen about taking the festival into Asia, and building a really strong collaborative relationship with artists from our region. That’s something we’d love to look at in the future.”
For the time-being, the focus is on consolidating the Melbourne Sugar Mountain as the top priority, including finding a new venue for the event.
“We love The Forum,” says Huggins of the site that’s hosted Sugar Mountain since its inception in April 2011, “but it felt like the right time to move.”
As for next year’s lineup, Huggins – who has traditionally worked with fellow To And Fro member Nicci Reid (of the Wing+Gill touring compnay) to curate the Sugar Mountain bill – has given few clues away.
“We’ll continue to be focussed on new works, collaboration across different creative disciplines, one-off experiences and, most importantly, curating line-ups that are fun and exciting for a discerning music festival-goer,” he says.
The inaugural Sugar Mountain first took place in April 2011, and has continued to bring an impressive list of indie artists – including Deerhoof, tUnE-yArDs, Shabazz Palaces, Thee Oh Sees, and Julianna Barwick – alongside a strong emphasis on visual arts; including contributions from the likes of Misha Hollenbach, Maya Hayuk, Dylan Martorell, Vincent Moon and Beci Orpin.
Sugar Mountain 2013: Review | Gallery
