The Boomerang Festival launched for the first time ever over the weekend, and the team behind the indigenous arts, music, and culture event have vowed that like its namesake, it will return.
Over 5,000 people attended the three-day event, held at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm in Byron Bay on Bundjalung land – the award winning home of Bluesfest – with the annual event’s Peter Noble has enthusiastically noted the Indigenous festival’s success in bridging cultural diversity while transcending greater achievements than just monetary concerns.
“Boomerang will come back and this is going to be one of Australia’s greatest festivals,” champions Noble, while telling The Coffs Coast Advocate; “I have never felt more pride in doing an event, ever… There can be no greater coming together than to understand our original Australians more. Every Australian gets something from that,” he says.
“We had indigenous people share their music, dancing and stories with us, and as an Australian white fella I feel I will walk out of here with much deeper roots in my country, because of my experiences.”
Among a series of workshops, art, theatre, dances, panels, and a film festival, Boomerang featured live performances from celebrated Aboriginal performers such as Gurrumul, Archie Roach, Thelma Plum, Shellie Morris
The Medics, as well as Xavier Rudd and John Williamson.
Mr Noble had flagged issues with Boomerang’s struggling ticket sales ahead of its kick-off last Friday 4th October, likening the general disinterest to “cultural apartheid” while struggling to gain widespread media interest in the inaugural event.
With four years and $1.2 million of his own time and money poured into the event, Noble was determined “by hook or by crook” to push on with Boomerang, even at the risk of a loss on the event. And while reports claim that he did not in fact turn a profit, Mr Noble indicates that the event was more successful than the first ever Bluesfest, which next year celebrates its 25th Anniversary.
However, Noble has drawn nothing but positive results from the impact of Boomerang and the feedback from its enlightened attendees. “People have been coming up to me saying this is what Byron Bay needs,” says Noble, who is determined to make Boomerang an important, and unique, event on the festival calendar.
“Next year we will have twice as many people because this boomerang will come back,” he notes. “Give us two more years and we are going to be getting 10,000 people a day.”
“We are going to make a profit out of it and that will show that indigenous Australia is worth investing more in,” he continues. “That’s what we are doing; we are investing in the indigenous people of our country with pride. The world doesn’t need another rock festival, it needs events like this, and that is why the Boomerang Festival will grow and succeed and probably even outlive me.”
To that end, Noble says that tickets for next year’s Boomerang have already begun selling whil artists have registered their interest in being involved for the 2014 edition.
Meanwhile Boomerang Festival’s Artistic Director, Rhoda Roberts, who had made a personal plea over the poor ticket sales in the lead-up to the event, emphasised the festival’s inspirational debut. “The energy of the space has been extraordinary, everyone has been laughing and hugging, it’s just a wonderful atmosphere,” says Roberts adding that the non-musical elements were just as important to Boomerang’s success.
Meanwhile famed journalist George Negus, who also a featured speaker at Boomerang, said that the event “will play an important role in the two-way process so important in bridging cultures and its people closer. Not only that, with the inaugural Boomerang as the bench-mark it actually would be a lot of fun… trust me, I’m a journalist.”
