DAVID ADAMS speaks with Easterfest CEO Isaac Moody about the floods and the upcoming festival…
When the Queensland town of Toowoomba hosts the annual Easterfest event in April, the community will still be battling with the aftermath of the floods which swept through the town in January.
“It’s going to have a whole lot of special meaning this year because it’s not just coming to a festival to be entertained but coming to a festival where, just by even having a coffee in the city, you will help, literally, the city recover from the floods,” says the festival’s chief executive Isaac Moody.
THE MAIN EVENT: Crowds at the Mainstage at last year’s Easterfest. PICTURE: Trent Rouillon
“I think there’s this whole sense of community that’s coming out the flood. And while we wouldn’t have wished this on anybody, I think one of the upsides of it is that people are wanting to come to the city and support it and that means coming to Easterfest in bigger numbers than the ever have before.”
– Isaac Moody, Easterfest CEO
Mr Moody says that as a result, the bookings are the highest they’ve ever been for Easterfest. He says this is undoubtedly partly due to the fact the festival boasts the biggest artist line-up to date – where they’d normally have eight or so lead acts, this year, they’ve confirmed, at the time Sightspoke to Mr Moody, at least 17 including Switchfoot, Petra, Newworldson and Darlene Zschech.
“But on top of all of that, I think there’s this whole sense of community that’s coming out the flood,” Mr Moody adds. “And while we wouldn’t have wished this on anybody, I think one of the upsides of it is that people are wanting to come to the city and support it and that means coming to Easterfest in bigger numbers than the ever have before.”
The organisers, who have spent much of the past year securing acts which, as well as international stars will include some 200 Australian artists, are expecting numbers to be somewhere in the tens of thousands – the mix of ticketed and free events means getting hard data is difficult – with people coming from across Australia and from as far away as Sweden and the US.
It will be the 13th time Easterfest has been held in Toowoomba although it’s gone through some substantial changes in that time – Mr Moody note that these days the festival is as much about “sitting in coffee shops and listening to artists” as it is about the big Mainstage experience.
This year’s festival will also feature film screenings, talks, illusionist performances, and extreme sports displays including some world record attempts on BMX bikes. And, with Anzac Day on Easter Monday, the festival organisers are encouraging those attendees still in Toowoomba – the festival officially finishes on Sunday – to attend the town’s Dawn Service. There will also be a ceremony at the festival itself.
The origins of the festival lie in a meeting held in the late Nineties in which representatives of the city council, police, local businesses, the chamber of commerce and churches and decided they needed ‘something positive’ for the city.
Noting the success of the country music festival in the New South Wales town of Tamworth, the group opted for a Gospel music festival. Mr Moody, who was born and bred in Toowoomba, was a volunteer in the festival’s first year, running the its youth arm and also acting as production manager. He became its coordinator a year later at the age of 19.
Mr Moody says that what sets Easterfest apart from other festivals is that it remains so “intrinsically integrated” with the city. He says the amount of community support the event receives is key to its success as is the fact that the local churches by-and-large get on so well together – something that, as he points out, isn’t always the case.
“It’s a sad thing to even talk about or consider, but churches by and large are autonomous and there’s a big focus around Australia on building your local church,” he notes. “Fortunately, there’s a number of churches in Toowoomba that have a bigger vision than that and that’s meant that things like Easterfest have been able to not only get up off the ground but thrive. As far as the Christian calendar goes, it’s the largest event in Australia now and I would put that all down to the fact that the churches have a sense of unity about them.”
Mr Moody says that among the many social benefits of the event is the fact that Easterfest is believed to be the only event in the country where the population of the city increases yet the crime rate reduces. “So it’s got all these social implications that just add to the positive atmosphere.”
Asked how the festival maintains its Christian focus, Mr Moody, who notes that personally he struggles with terms like “Christian music” – “what deems it Christian and then at what point does it not become Christian?”, says that rather than labeling the festival as Christian, the organisers have instead opted to focus on it being about Easter.
CITY VIBE: Easterfest in the City at Grand Central Shopping Centre, Toowoomba. PICTURE: Katie Finn
“And Easter is the Gospel message, it’s the prime Christian story, and we want to be a festival about that…It’s a bit like Christmas – I think whether people are Christians or not themselves personally, they relate to Christmas, the story, and will come and sing carols. And I think when we’re a festival about Easter, they’re happy to come and do that as well and identify with the Easter story.”
Mr Moody describes Easterfest as a “giant social experiment where the Easter message is actually on the advance in the public sphere”.
“I’m not sure too there’s many places in the Western world where that is happening…” he says. “Nobody that I’m aware of…is collectively working with, as best they can, the entire body of Christ, the entire church, rather than a single brand, and collectively seeing if the Gospel can advance into the public sphere where it’s been in retreat.”
He says that while he can tell hundreds of stories of individual commitments people have made to Christ during the festival, he wouldn’t want to measure its success solely in those terms.
“We’re answering one philosophical question which is: ‘Is it true that whatever a city celebrates is an accurate reflection of its spiritual health?’ And if we can get our city of Toowoomba – only a little city of 100,000 people – to celebrate the Easter message, then can that reverse-engineer its culture? That, to me, is about cultural redemption as much as it is about individual live. We often focus on the individual, but I think we mustn’t do that at the expense of the community or the collective.”
That sense of community spirit in Toowoomba which Mr Moody talks about is much needed now in the wake of the floods which swept through the town in January.
“I think the city is still largely in shock and I think will be for some time yet…” he says. “It’s very raw and real.”
Among the casualties of the floods were one of the Easterfest’s secondary offices (although the main office was spared).
“Obviously it means it’s (been) a very different start to the year but we consider ourselves fortunate considering many people have lost much more including the lives of loved ones, so we’ve got nothing to complain about and we’ve been able to get back on with the job,” says Mr Moody.
He adds that while the initial response from people after the floods was whether the festival was going ahead, once they were assured it was, their attitude changed.
“(I)t’s turned into a real sense of ‘Hey, we’re coming to the festival this year to support the city of Toowoomba’.”
And it’s that attitude, he believes, that will make this year’s festival a stand-out performance.
