It was a rough year for Australian events. Outback organisers are persevering to keep the festival spirit strong.
Story Kate Newsome Photos Matt Williams
The choir’s song reverberates across the dusk-lit waterhole and through the red cliffs of Ormiston Gorge, NT. Here, in the outback’s heartland, more than 2,500 people gather in this natural amphitheatre nestled within the West MacDonnell Ranges/Tjoritja to watch the Desert Song Festival finale.
For more than a decade, Desert Song has assembled maestros, musicians and vocal groups for a Central Australian celebration of culture, language and melding song traditions. But in September 2024, ‘A Capella in The Gorge’ marked the final curtain for the decade-old festival.
There are many reasons Desert Song’s director Morris Stuart AM is bowing out: age, an absence of a directorial successor, and a reliance on volunteers and audiences in the thick of a cost-of-living crisis. This all comes despite Morris’s advocacy for greater government funding and support for Desert Song, and events of the same ilk.
All manner of events bring visitors together with rural and remote communities – everything from literary, film and music festivals, markets and street parades to agricultural shows, mud trials, marathons, musters, rodeos and regatta races on dry riverbeds. But many face an uncertain future. Desert Song is one in a slew of event casualties announced across Australia this year. Many are scaling back, on hiatus, or calling it quits, with ramifications rippling across the outback.
This story excerpt is from Issue #158
Outback Magazine: December/January 2025
