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August 2023

Get your skates on and send in the clowns

Highlights of the Canberra Festival 1980's - 1990's

ACT3-3523 - Canberra Festival Parade, March 1989.

Send in the clowns: Highlights of the Canberra Festival 1980s-1990s.

In January 2018 we looked at some photographs of the Birdman Rally (1985-1992), one of the best-known Canberra Festival events. This month we thought we would explore some of the other festival events.

ACT3-8574 – Hot air balloons during the Canberra Festival, March 1986.

ACT3-1502 – Clown giving children a balloon at the Recreation Expo, March 1988.

These included the Canberra Balloon Festival, the Recreation Expo, Skyfire, the Outdoor Art Festival, the Festival Parade and Mardi Gras, the Food and Wine Frolic and many others, as this draft program of the 1990 Festival shows:

89-18470 – Draft program for Canberra Festival 1990.

89-18470 – Draft program for Canberra Festival 1990.

89-18470 – Draft program for Canberra Festival 1990.

89-18470 – Draft program for Canberra Festival 1990.

A precursor to today’s Enlighten Festival, the Canberra Festival began in 1980. It was a ten-day festival based around Canberra Day, the second Monday in March. The files we hold relate to coordination of logistics like grant applications, office accommodation festival staff, and waste and traffic management. Event programming and overall festival management was done by a private organisation, Canberra Festival Incorporated. The ACT Government files are a good source of information about the Festival in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and illustrate what an important event it was to the Canberra and regional community. See, for example, these lists of business and community groups involved with the Festival, many still active, and others no longer in existence.

89-18470 – Community groups involved with 1989 Canberra Festival.
89-18470 – Businesses involved with 1989 Canberra Festival.

The first Skyfire event, presented by FM 104.7, took place in 1989 as part of the Festival. Long-time Canberrans may remember the joyful and novel spectacle of fireworks choreographed to music, immediately followed by the stress of trying to exit Parliamentary Triangle carparks at the same time as thousands of others.

88-14219 - Canberra Festival program 1989 – Birdman and Skyfire.

Like any big event, the Festival had its ups and downs. Finances were tight and relied heavily on government grants and on sponsorship by local and international businesses. The 1989 Festival suffered a $52,620 shortfall of ticket sales revenue due to unseasonably wet weather. At the end of March 1989, the Festival’s director, Ellen Blunden, wrote to Clyde Holding, MP, Minister for the Arts and Territories, to request a special grant of $50,000:

“Traditionally, weather at Festival time has been characterised by stable, warm and dry conditions. The Bureau of Meteorology confirms that 1989 was the wettest March since 1950 both in terms of the level of rainfall and of the number of rainy days in the month.” (Ref: 89/05550 ACT Festivals – Canberra Festival part 4)

Festival Parade and Mardi Gras

89-18470 - Canberra Festival Mardi Gras advertisement, 1990.

The Parade and Mardi Gras were Canberra Festival mainstays. Once again (see Find of the Month April 2022), the Office of the Surveyor General photograph collection has some informative and fun images. The collection includes numerous photographs of the Festival Parade, an event that drew crowds of onlookers along London Circuit and around Civic. The floats and costumes provide insight into popular culture of the time, such as daleks from Dr Who, children’s television character Alf, and clowns and roller skates galore.

ACT3-8480 – Tiny car and caravan advertising bicycle museum in parade, March 1986.
ACT3-1370 – Christopher Robin Children’s Garden, March 1988.
ACT3-1348 – National Capital Roller Skating Club, March 1988.
ACT3-1351 – National Capital Roller Skating Club, March 1988.
ACT3-1378 – Animals and birds in Festival Parade, March 1988.
ACT3-1410 – J’s Roller Rink float with Alf in Festival Parade, March 1988.
ACT3-1391 – Telecom Australia in Festival Parade, March 1988.
ACT3-1409 – Public gathered to watch Festival Parade, March 1988.
ACT3-1371 – Dalek in Festival Parade, March 1988.

Food and Wine Frolic

The Food and Wine Frolic was one of the most popular Festival events. Held in Commonwealth Park, it provided live music and entertainment, food and drink stalls, and a good reason to spend a day in the autumnal sunshine with friends and family. Attendance in some years exceeded 100,000 people.

89-18470 – Advertisement for Food and Wine Frolic, 1989.

ACT3-1929 – Food and Wine Frolic picnic group, March 1984.

By the early 1990s, the Festival was popularly known as the Alcoholic Frolic and had become controversial, with headlines about brawls after the event. American Express withdrew its $50,000 sponsorship in mid-1994. A modified event took place in 1995, with more fences and restrictions so that attendees could no longer bring in “wheelie bins, shopping trollies or wheelbarrows full of alcohol” (Ref: CT, 10/2/1995).

ACT3-8545 – Concert at Food and Wine Frolic, March 1986.

We hope to digitise some of the Office of the Surveyor General photograph collection in the future, but in the meantime, you can search ACT Memory, and get in touch with us if there are images you would like to see in person or have digitised. If you would like to know more about these records please contact ArchivesACT by filling out our online form.

Images

ACT3. Office of the Surveyor General Photo Collection – Archives ACT

References

File 88/14219 ACT Festivals – 1988/89 Special events & Festivals grant – Canberra Festival 1989

File 89/05550 ACT Festivals – Canberra festival (Part 4)

File 89/18470 ACT Festivals – Canberra Festival (Part 5)

Food and wine — and no more brawling (1995, February 10). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 1. Retrieved July 31, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133334389

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