Spring Migration turnaround

After months of uncertainty, this year’s Spring Migration festival will go ahead with organisers Gary Hayward and Andy Stevens announcing they will coordinate the event.
The couple quit organising the festival last November, claiming a number of people’s attitudes in the small north Victorian town of Yackandandah had marred the event.
In a turnaround last week, Hayward announced the pair will organise the September festival with some help from the Indigo Shire, neighbouring towns and regional gay and lesbian groups.
Although some events will still be held in Yackandandah, the major dance event, Full Moon Party, will be held in the nearby town of Beechworth.
Hayward said the festival is also set to go from three days to a seven-day event.
Although unprepared to talk about it at the time, Hayward admitted last week that -œhomophobic crap from a few townsfolk was the main reason he was disillusioned, but he decided the event was too important not to go ahead.
-œIt’s been a hard slog, people with those attitudes hold power in the town.
He told Southern Star that moving to Beechworth will -œtake away some of the bullshit that goes on here. It’d be a shame to let it go, so we’re going to keep going, otherwise we would have lost it.
The Sunday market will remain in Yackandandah, and Hayward is involved in talks with nearby towns to host other festival events.
The Yackandandah Tourism Association had put their hand up to continue running the festival, however, Hayward said he was angered by a decision to make the event more family-friendly.
-œThe Tourism Association were going to keep it going but were going to make it more about family values -” it wouldn’t have worked and that made me mad because we are about family values, as far as we’re concerned, he said.
The Indigo Shire have thrown verbal support behind the festival. They say they don’t believe homophobia is a problem in the region.
Shire tourism manager Kate Biglin said the Shire won’t be involved in the event planning stages but will assist in promoting the festival and logistics tasks such as rubbish collection.
Biglin said Spring Migration rates as an -œimportant event in the region’s calendar and denied there was a problem with local attitudes.
-œIt’s not my feeling that there is a big issue of homophobia in the Shire that needs addressing, she told Southern Star.
-œThe biggest issue raised was among some families who thought there were some people inappropriately dressed for children to see.

-œBut on the whole, the Shire is supportive of the festival.
News the festival will go ahead coincides with Indigo Shire Council figures released last month showing tourism in the region has picked up by 10 percent between 2007/08 and 2008/09.
The Yackandandah Visitor Information Centre showed a 49 percent increase in the number of tourists coming to the town, largely due to a three-week Tibetan monk Peace Tour in the area. The monks opened last year’s Spring Migration festival.

info: www.springmigration.com.au