Almost a decade ago, Clare Downes – fresh out of university, full of creativity, stifled by oppressive bosses – and a bunch of her mates decided to throw a party called Secret Garden.
2016 sees the festival in its eighth year, and it’s stayed true to its roots, even though the event has grown considerably since its first foray into the greener pastures somewhere south of Sydney.
“When we first decided to put on Secret Garden, we first and foremost wanted to put on a fun party for our mates that we’d like to go to,” says Downes. “And second to that was creating an event that all of our creative friends could work on without the confines of bosses telling us what to do. Now we’ve grown into a team of 85 volunteers and they’re all creative leaders in each of their fields. Lastly, we decided that whatever we do, let’s have positive impact – whether that be on the farm, in the local community or for the musicians themselves. Obviously raising money for charity is one of the ways we spread that positive impact. It just feels right that with the amount of money that flows through an event like this, that most of it is given away.”
Each year, Secret Garden donates most of its proceeds to the Sarah Hilt Foundation, raising money for Downes’ high school friend who survived a case of meningococcal ten years ago. Oxfam Australia also gets a chunk of the proceeds, funding projects in Timor to help local farmers become more self-sufficient.
While altruism has been a constant, one of the biggest changes to Secret Garden this year will be the expansion of the festival to two full days and nights, giving punters more time to revel in the festivities. “Two days allows you to begin thinking into the rhythm of the event,” says Downes. “You make more friends and you establish your favourite area of the festival. There really is so much going on at Secret Garden that there just isn’t enough time to do everything, so this way ticket holders have a chance to do a bit more.
“This year there’ll be six stages. We’re big on offering a million different options at any one time. We’ve obviously grown the festival a lot over the years, but we’ve only grown it so we can add more things to the festival like more stages, more performers, more creative areas.”
Festivals have become just as much about the food and cultural offerings as they are about the music, and Secret Garden is no exception. Attendees can purchase tickets to the Secret Garden Banquet as well as enjoy breakfast cooked by the local primary school students and some of Sydney’s best food trucks.
“The Secret Garden Banquet will be held in these beautiful heritage-listed stables outside of the festival site,” Downes explains. “People are picked up from the festival site and taken through the forest through to the secret banquet where we have a huge meal, make some new friends, drink some wine and then you’re thrown back into the heart of the festival, offering a really unique experience.”
Both Downes and creative director Adam Lewis revel in the freedom offered by keeping the music lineup unannounced until tickets sell out. This freedom is a pivotal part in creating the unique atmosphere that Secret Garden offers.
“Secret Garden is first and foremost an event, and I truly believe in creating an event which sells tickets as opposed to a lineup that sells tickets,” Downes says. “People are really loyal to the event because we go that extra mile in creating things like hidden areas, surprises, pop-up performances, actors, comedians, kissing booths, Secret Garden Olympics and then the incredible lineup. So really it’s all those things working together that make Secret Garden the success that it is.”
Lewis – the man in charge of curating the ball-bustingly good lineup each year – shares Downes’ sense of endless creative scope in the Secret Garden way of doing things. “It’s got a lot of ramifications – it means, for example, that we can get artists that we might not normally be able to with our size and budget, due to most of the profits being donated to charity,” he says. “Every year I’m able to bring in some bands that might not necessarily shift tickets on a lineup, but once people get there they love them. Bands like this in the past have been Total Giovanni, Client Liaison, and people have fallen in love with them. Being able to cultivate that atmosphere is really cool.”
Lewis seems to be itching with excitement to share who will be on the 2016 lineup, promising this year’s festival will not disappoint ticket holders. “After each year we think, ‘I don’t know if we can get a lineup much better than that,’ and then we seem to smash an even better lineup together the next year. Tickets are still on sale, so until they sell out we’re remaining pretty tight-lipped, but I’m hoping there will be some things we can share very soon. I am really proud of this lineup. At this point it’s an all-Australian lineup, and I’d say it’s probably our biggest lineup yet.”
Secret Garden 2016 takes place Friday February 26 – Sunday February 28. Head to secretgardenfestival.com.au for more info.
