Falls Festival Is Heading to Western Australia This Summer
The summer festival will takeover downtown Fremantle in 2017.
This past year has been one of the toughest for big music festivals. With the cancellation of Future Music, Soundwave and Stereosonic, it seemed like big festivals couldn't catch a break. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise that The Falls Music & Arts Festival this morning announced they're expanding their much-loved New Year's Eve musical romp, adding Fremantle to the Australian festival's touring schedule this summer.
Here's the second surprise though: this new Western Australian incarnation of Falls (named Falls Downtown) isn't going to be held in the standard east coast format. Firstly, it won't be held over New Year's. And while Falls has always famously run the festival simultaneously in the three cities — Lorne, Marion Bay and Byron — the two-day Freo fest is slated to take place over the weekend of January 7-8.
The second point of difference (as you may have noticed) is the location. It's in the city. Instead of setting up in a rural festival site, Falls Downtown will take over streets and "forgotten" buildings a short walk from the Fremantle beachfront. That means this won't be a camping situation (sorry, folks), but makes it more akin to inner-city festivals Laneway and Sugar Mountain.
While the lineup for this year's Falls is still under wraps, they've got us pretty pumped about the location alone. The main stage will be set up in Freo's town square, while an old-world ballroom and a stone-walled church will house the smaller ones. They'll also be taking over the abandoned Myer building, turning it into a creepy crib for art installations, "unexpected performance areas", markets and "bunkered basement danceterias". There'll even be a small number of glamping tents on the roof. It sounds similar to some of Melbourne Music Week's activations of abandoned spaces, and it sounds insane.
It's another win for Falls, who sell out their Lorne event basically every year. Since its inception in Lorne back in 1993, the festival has grown to span three cities, which include the original site on the Great Ocean Road, Marion Bay in Tassie and, since 2013, Byron Bay.
There's no word on how much tickets will cost, when they go on sale or who'll be playing at the festival — yet. We're expecting that to come in the next month or two.
Falls Downtown is happening in Fremantle on January 7 and 8. To keep updated lineup and ticket announcements, check their Facebook page.
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