Storyland is a brand new festival on Australia’s ever growing festival roster, and like the events themselves, Storyland is unique and diverse. Storyland is set to take place on the picturesque Park Beach Reserve in Coffs Harbour on the 20th of May and is being promoted as the festival to go to if you want to “immerse yourself in your love of movies, music, food, and partying”. MFA caught up with Festival Director Dave Horsley to ask him about the creation of Storyland, what punters can look forward to and what it takes to bring a new festival to life.

Dave, you are the Festival Director for Storyland, is this the first festival you have been involved in on the planning side of things?

Festivals have been in our blood for a long time. Kate and I founded the Screenwave International Film Festival on the Coffs Coast, which the locals started calling SWIFF, so now we do too. We moved down here from Brisbane about a decade ago. SWIFF is now humming as a decently sized film festival. It runs for 16 days each year, hosting around 140 feature film sessions and events and such. Around 12,000 people attend each year – and it’s on pretty soon just before Storyland (Apr 20 -May 5). Now that SWIFF’s on its feet though, our next goal was to add a music element into it – a one-day event called Storyland, where we celebrate music and art and creativity and storytelling. But Storyland is so big we just decided to give it its own space as its own festival, so now it’s on Saturday, May 20. Still same place though, on the waterfront at Park Beach Reserve, Coffs Harbour.

We’ve been lucky to have a team of music industry veterans really get on board with our vision with big festivals on their CVs and artists have understood too. Storyland will be co-headlined by Hiatus Kaiyote and Genesis Owusu, plus Electric Fields as a recent addition too, along with around a dozen or so other acts. Ngaiire and Emma Donovan are brilliant artists. K+LAB brings a big sound too. And then we’ve organised for Horns of Leroy, who are a 7-piece Melbourne outfit that play things like the VB theme song, all on horns – just because they’re super fun. We just felt that Coffs Harbour wasn’t getting the type of music that we love touring through – so we’re bringing the artists we like here ourselves, with most Storyland artists performing in Coffs Harbour for the first time at Storyland.

Storyland has been assisted by a number of government support programs and grants including the RISE Fund and Regional Event Acceleration Fund. How important is this funding in getting events like Storyland off the ground?

There would be no Storyland without the support of NSW State Government and Australian Federal Government funding. In Australia, almost all largescale arts events are intrinsically linked to Government funding.

“The concept for Storyland came from a place of not wanting to run the same run-of-the-mill festival... They had a stage. They had a bar. They sometimes had a merch tent. And every man and his dog would be bringing camping chairs and akubras. And we just thought, fuck that! ”

— Dave Horsley

Storyland is a festival described as a place you can “immerse yourself in your love of movies, music, food, and partying”. Where did the inspiration or concept come from for Storyland?

Because we’re all big arts geeks. We’ve all made careers out of working in the creative industries – but we’re only here because we got bit by the arts bug early on. The concept for Storyland came from a place of not wanting to run the same run-of-the-mill festival we were seeing locally, most of them part of touring productions. They had a stage. They had a bar. They sometimes had a merch tent. And every man and his dog would be bringing camping chairs and akubras. And we just thought, fuck that! We’re not old enough for that – let’s create something that’s fun, where people who are old like us don’t get reminded of it, where live music is an active festival experience. And that’s where the concept of basically making the festival an outdoor art gallery with big installation artwork littered through it, with spontaneous theatre performances popping up, with projection mapped digital artworks and film installations that get you up on your feet and exploring. When we were developing the festival, we wanted to bring that sense of play back into adults – something we lose as teenagers. So some of that is in there too. We’re film tragics through and through though, so expect a lot of little cinematic easter eggs and film references sprinkled through it. We are stoked to see people talking about dressing in movie character outfits. That’s super fun too.

What makes Storyland different to other festivals?

Well, it’s in Coffs Harbour for starters. But basically it’s got these three elements. A cracking line-up of live music artists, artworks and experiences commissioned throughout the festival, and a signature narrative backbone to the event, with a unique story written by Storyland’s Creative Directors – a killer First Nations lead art duo called Zakpage – who have crafted the origin story of Storyland – this fictitious place people step into when entering the festival site, where all stories come from. The story will play out over three pretty amazing digitally animated film artworks throughout the event at various times.

“life is for living – and watching cool people engage with the creative expression of crazy-talented artists from our region, and from around Australia, that is what gets us up on a Monday morning”

— Dave Horsley

We are living through difficult times at the moment, what have been the challenges in organizing a festival and especially a brand new one in the current climate?

And here I thought this was a puff piece! I mean, all jokes aside, we could bang on about how hard our work is or how hard our lives are – but everyone is going through the same shit globally. It’s not like we’re unique. We live by the Pacific Ocean and the Great Dividing Range in Coffs Harbour. That doesn’t make any challenges we’ve faced any less real or diminish what we’ve gone through to get to the place we’re at– but banging on about the negatives only distracts from the point of why we dedicate our lives to creating arts events. And that’s because life is for living – and watching cool people engage with the creative expression of crazy-talented artists from our region, and from around Australia, that is what gets us up on a Monday morning. We just dig it.

But yeah – bring on universal basic income for Australia’s creative sector.

Coffs Harbour is a beautiful part of the world but what made it special enough to be chosen as the home of Storyland?

Well, Coffs Harbour had the great fortune of being the place we live in. That’s why Storyland is here. I’m personally against the idea of touring festivals. While it opens access to new audiences, it also creates a homogenous arts landscape. What is considered art in places starts to feel all the same. Each region should have its own unique cultural fingerprint. That’s why producing and supporting locally-produced festivals are so important – they’re something a whole community can get behind, because they’re set in for the long term.

But Coffs has been really cranking creatively for a long time know, especially in the last year when people realised they didn’t need a Sydney CBD office to work. House prices are ludicrous in Coffs Harbour these days, but on the plus side the creative scene has been growing exponentially. Russell Crowe is building a $450 million dollar film studio here soon, so I don’t think it’s slowing down either.

Bit of a far cry from being known for the Big Banana. But I guess that’s just a big art sculpture too at the end of the day.

“Each region should have its own unique cultural fingerprint. That’s why producing and supporting locally-produced festivals are so important ”

— Dave Horsley

How did you select the Musical Acts that are set to appear at Storyland?

The same way we curate the 80-something feature films at our SWIFF film festival. We watch them. We go with our own taste first. When you dedicate everything in your life to a fascination with the arts, you begin to get a sense of what’s cooking right now. But we’re our own audience members. Festivals are about building these ephemeral communities – so I guess more than anything it’s having a genuine interest in what you’re bringing.

There’s all the industry stuff too, I guess. Who’s available on your dates. How far does your budget stretch. Blah blah blah. But we curate by asking ourselves genuinely if we would fork out our money to buy a ticket, if we were punters looking from the outside in.

So in summary – it’s impeccable taste.

The Filthy Aliens are set to perform in **The Yurt Locker**

Storyland will feature two stages, including a DJ Tent “The Yurt Locker”, which is set to have “pole dancing Filthy Aliens” and an atmosphere that will remind you “why Storyland is an 18+ event”. What can festival goers expect upon entering “The Yurt Locker”?

We love all sorts of music – including EDM. We just wanted to create an environment where folks can let go of the responsibilities in their life for a moment and just enjoy things in an instinctual, reactive way. A mate of ours, Coco Varma, moved to our region from the UK around the same time we did. Coco Varma is the godfather of the ethnocyberfunk scene in the UK – bigging up the opportunities for music artists from diverse backgrounds to infuse a little bit of their culture into the London dance scene. And we somehow convinced Coco to curate the line-up for The Yurt Locker stage. He came up with the name too – which, as big film geeks, we can’t get over.

In that same vein of representation, we were pretty big on female artists having opportunities to perform. Coco has pulled together a line-up that is headlined by The Clitoverse, an all-girl DJ collective with a big, sleazy bass sound. They’re ripper. They’re the ones with the pole dancers (Filthy Aliens), who are these incredible athletes and artists. That’s adding to a killer line-up including DJ Katch (from Resin Dogs), Coco is doing a special set, plus Jamaican MC Fitzroy Lee doing his thing too. VJ Fluxa is heading up the visuals in the tent– projecting on to the roof of our blessed Yurt.

You mentioned the 18+ thing too. You can have a lot more fun without responsibility. There are festivals that are family friendly – but Storyland isn’t one of them. Not appropriate with the pole dancers and such.

I can’t remember what the question was, but basically, we’re creating a place where people can just enjoy hanging out with their friends, enjoying art, having a beer, getting their minds blown by some of our fave Australian music acts.

Storyland will have large scale film-inspired art installations animated by Caleb Cowie written by Zakpage, how did the collaboration with Caleb and Zakpage come about?

They’re artists we admire. Folks we’ve known about the traps and became mates with through appreciating their artwork. Caleb is a musician that headlines dance festivals across North America and Australia. He’s K+LAB – and we’re lucky enough to have him performing at Storyland.

Zakpage are incredible artists. Alison Page and Nik Lachaczak. They are so crazy eclectic, with exhibition pieces in the National Museum of Australia. They’re working with Bangarra dance company right now on a project. Lots of their work is film-based, which is how we got to know them – but they also have an extensive CV in architecture, design, you name it. Big fans. And they dig what we’re about, so we finally found a project to work on together – Storyland!

“You’ll be hard pressed to find a more creative lot of folks than the folks backstage MacGuyvering a broken rig out of a coke can and three lengths of gaffer tape.”

— Dave Horsley

A lot goes into an event like Storyland behind the scenes, Is there anyone from the stage, sound or staff crews that deserve a special shout out?

Every single one of them. It is something that kind of irks me about the arts industry a little. Without crew, there are no festivals – and they seldom get the love of the more visible parts of festivals. We do our best to include our ops team when we’re programming events. You’ll be hard pressed to find a more creative lot of folks than the folks backstage MacGuyvering a broken rig out of a coke can and three lengths of gaffer tape. So we try and bring their experience into the picture – they have great suggestions. Most of them are artists in their own right anyway. An uncomfortably long group hug going out to our mates at Events Delivered, Good Crew and Inspired Audio Visual!.

For those who don’t yet have their Storyland ticket yet, why should they get along to Storyland on the 20th of May?

If you’ve made it this far into my long-ass interview, chances are you’re probably already sold on the idea or you would’ve jetted already. If you have made it to the end, there’s a solid chance you’re into arts and culture and music and creativity. And if you like those things, you will like Storyland. It is made by a bunch of arts geeks with a budget.

For tickets and information head to http://www.slmf.com.au/

It’s Storyland time