In the Central Highlands of Victoria, ChillOut Festival's celebratory silver jubilee programme is aptly themed 'Our Time To Shine’.
The festival will loudly and proudly celebrate 25 years, with a street parade, a pool party, a car park disco, cocktails, choirs, bushwalks, disco bingo, quiz night, tennis, golf, and even an '80s foam party – that's right.
There's something for everyone.
“Celebrating our 25 years time to shine was always going to be about honouring an array of Victorian regional artists, so city folk could escape the big smoke and enjoy a slice of country heaven,” Festival Director Em Ireland says.
Headline shows include dancer Joel Bray's new work 'Daddy', NZ musician Ladyhawke playing the Ballroom Blitz event, Sound Shell Saturday, an all-ages Youth Stage with MC Art Simone, High Tea with Katherine Wolfgramme in Convent Garden, 'Soul Disco' from Kylie Auldist, and the huge Carnivale, hosted by Nate Byrne (ABC) and Art Simone.
Kylie Auldist
“We are bringing in many things to make for a COVID-safe festival, many of our events are free and outdoor and for our big Sunday carnival we are having a four-by-four metre LCD screen side of stage so that people can sit back, relax and still get a good view of what’s going on,” Em continues.
“We are also running COVID-safe bus services from Melbourne and around regional areas as well as our COVID-safe shuttle bus.”
“With all the unpredictability and frustration for everyone in our modern climate we plan on bringing the joy for 'Our Time To Shine'!”
“Worst case scenario is that you do a RAT test and sit in your hotel room sweating while you watch a livestream, best case scenario you enjoy a COVID-safe celebration of community and connectedness as we intended, we are all in it together, bring the love!”
ChillOut's 2022 ambassadors are Molly Meldrum, Ro Allen, Nate Byrne and Dolly Diamond.
ChillOut Festival runs from 10-14 March.
