Umbrella Festival

Words by Hollie Connery. 1 to 31 July 2022

As the days get colder and shorter and the pull toward the warm hearths of home grows stronger, one sure way to keep your flame alive is by throwing on your winter woolies and getting along to one of the 170 plus events during the Umbrella Festival this July.

The Umbrella Festival is an open-access live music festival run by musicians, for musicians. After a generous grant in 2016 from the South Australian government, not-for-profit organisation Music SA – whose purpose is to champion contemporary music in South Australia – created this unique winter experience to keep people connected to music culture, and musicians on stage, during winter’s steely grasp. Music SA are delighted to bring Umbrella Festival back in 2022, and are designing this year’s program to assist in the recovery of the SA live music sector.

A record number of events at various venues across the state have registered, reaching as far as Elliston to Kangaroo Island, and a swag of them will be held here on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The festivities will brighten our lives and our local venues throughout the whole month of July, with notable locals Chalk Hill, Sourc’D Wine Collective

Page left and above: All photos taken at Umbrella Festival 2021 by Samuel Graves.

and Bar, Port Noarlunga Arts Centre and Beach Road Wines championing the cause.

The program provides an opportunity for musicians and local businesses to partner and sustain a strong live music culture as the industry continues to recover from the devastating impacts Covid has had on our local musicians and the bars, restaurants and clubs that accommodate their audiences. Steve Pitkin from Music SA remarks, ‘We want to encourage live music in rural and regional South Australia, to highlight those pockets that are putting on lots of gigs, so hot spots can emerge and musicians don’t need to travel vast distances and take their talents to the city in order to draw an audience. So they can develop their careers closer to home.’ With the necessary adaptations the music industry has had to undergo to survive ongoing capacity restrictions over the last couple of years, a beautiful evolution toward small and intimate gigs, running more regularly, has emerged. So if you forge outwards to get among the warmth and vibrancy of our unique live music scene this winter, know that you’re doing exactly what this industry needs to keep it alive.

Funding assistance is gratefully received from the Live Music Events Fund through the Music Development Office (MDO) and the South Australian Tourism Commission. Registrations are open for musicians and venues until the 23 June.