Eve Lamb
Castlemaine slips into smooth this Queen’s Birthday long weekend as the town’s jazz festival makes its post-COVID comeback.
Festival director Callum McClure said that while ticket sales were a little sluggish at this point – with patrons possibly spooked by the last two year’s cancellations due to COVID – organisers expected they would pick up in coming days.
“Yes, I think that people are waiting for the last minute to buy tickets,” said the director of the festival that brings many of the state’s top jazz talent to Castlemaine for three days of live music in a range of intimate venues.
This Queen’s Birthday festival will be the seventh running of the event, which has been carving out a niche for itself on the state’s live jazz calendar.
The venues include the Theatre Royal, Town Hall and Phee Broadway with the town’s bowls club and Boomtown Winery at The Mill both new additions to the venue lineup.
And organisers are particularly keen to let live music lovers know that the range of ticketing options on offer is nothing if not flexible.
“You can buy passes on the door to all venues and you can buy weekend passes, day passes and evening passes from each of the venues and also from the Market Building-information centre,” Callum said.
“Of course pre-booking is preferable, and you can exchange your ticket for a wristband at all venues.”
The festival gets started this Friday evening with a focus on local talent, and organisers are keen to encourage those who may not have sampled jazz in its many forms and fusions before to grab the opportunity to do so now.
“The festival has big band, New Orleans, swing, contemporary. It isn’t just the one style of jazz,” Callum said, highlighting genre-blending units like Melbourne-based Mount Kujo.
“There are a lot of fun bands like Mount Kujo, which is a young internationally formed act blending funk and jazz influenced by Latin and Afro-beat.”
