Illawarra acts primed for $2000 boost in front of home crowd
Applicants have the chance to showcase their work on a dedicated local music stage as the festival continues to mature
Illawarra music promoter Yours & Owls has teamed up with Horizon Bank ahead its music festival this year, offering a leg-up to emerging local acts.
The program offers grassroots talent a spot on the stacked festival line-up among the likes of G Flip, Ball Park Music, DMA’s, Genesis Owusu, PNAU and Tkay Maidza.
Applicants have the chance to showcase their work on a dedicated local music stage (the Horizon Rising stage) on day two of the festival – October 4. The initiative is backed by a $2000 grant funded by Horizon Bank and voted on by festivalgoers on the day.
Yours & Owls co-founder Ben Tillman says the initiative reflects a long-standing effort to further strengthen the local creative scene and place homegrown acts front and centre.
"We're from the area, and that's been a big part of where we started,” he says.
"We always thought it was a bit strange that there's all these really clever, creative people living here locally, but no one was really doing anything much with it. They were all kind of going to Sydney or whatever when we first started 20 years ago.
"[Yours & Owls] began with trying to make this area a bit more culturally vibrant, and that often starts in your own backyard.
"It's always been a big part of what we do, just trying to keep fostering and nurturing that local stuff, because it just deepens the community and makes it a more interesting place to live in."
In the festival’s 12th year, the visiting acts reflect a growing diversity of sound across the regional scene.
"Wollongong was always a very guitar-rock, heavy-rock, sort of grungy surf-rock city,” Ben says.
“But now, over the last few years, there's just heaps of different stuff coming through. It's becoming more broad and diverse, so there's some good rap stuff coming through, there's some good electronic music, there's some R&B music... It just feels like it's kind of evolving, which is cool."
Since 2014, Wollongong’s Yours & Owls festival has steadily built a reputation for innovation in the festival space. Pioneering socially distanced set-ups during the pandemic and spearheading the first festival pill-testing trial in NSW last year, "Gong Xmas" is no stranger to trying something new. This year continues that legacy with a brand-new urban "city crawl" format for day two.
Through the Horizon Rising stage, the festival aims to help audiences rediscover one of the most rewarding parts of live events – finding new music and local acts to support.
"I think the meaning of festivals has been lost a little bit over the past few years,” Ben says.
“Bringing back that sense of being there to find new music, that sense of adventure, a little bit of excitement in the unknown... I think that's what festivals are good for. You just stumble onto some band you've never heard of, but they become your new favourite band."
With applications open across all genres, organisers are encouraging anyone with a passion for performing to throw their hat in the ring.
"Anyone who is keen to get out there should apply. Everyone should feel like they want to apply and hopefully some cool stuff comes out of it,” Ben says.
Emerging acts with Wollongong and South Coast postcodes can apply via https://bit.ly/YAOHorizonRising until 5pm on August 31.
