Mushroom Buy Into Sugar Mountain Festival

Melbourne music and arts festival Sugar Mountain has announced a new partnership with the Mushroom Group, with the independent music company becoming a stakeholder to provide “stability and infrastructure” for the festival moving forward.

One of Melbourne's most critically acclaimed boutique events, the fourth instalment will announce its details – including a new venue – early next year. Mushroom's involvement is a further indication of Executive Director Matt Gudinski's direction with the company and their involvement will be spearheaded by himself and Frontier Touring stalwart Gerard Schlaghecke. Gudisnki, son of Mushroom Chairman Michael Gudinski and heir to the group's throne, is also involved heavily in Mushroom's partnership with Future, their first festival tie-in which was announced earlier this year.

Mushroom have confirmed to theMusic.com.au today that they are now majority stakeholders in the festival.

“Sugar Mountain is a festival that many staff from the Group have attended and admired for the past few years,” Gudinski said today. “This is an opportunity for us to continue to diversify Mushroom Group's reach in the live music world but most importantly to get involved and help evolve an event that we love and believe in. Mushroom will bring a lot to the table while leaving Sugar Mountain's unique artistic vision with those who have driven it since day one.”

Founded in 2011, the team behind the festival known as the To & Fro Family (Tig Huggins, Pete Keen, Brett Louis and Nicci Reid) will remain heavily involved with the event moving forward.

In a joint statement they said, “We have great respect for the contribution and history of Mushroom to the Australian music industry and couldn't be happier to continue to build the festival's reputation with their help. We're very excited at the opportunities this partnership brings to continue to grow Sugar Mountain. We're deeply committed to providing a one of kind, immersive and stimulating festival experience and this partnership provides us the opportunity to grow our vision.”

The event has traditionally taken place at The Forum, with the likes of ESG, Deerhoof, Action Bronson, Hunx & His Punx, Dirty Projectors and Kirin J Callinan gracing their stages.

On this year's Sugar Mountain event theMusic.com.au wrote, “They're booking great acts; the vibe is right; and the technology's ace. Though it hasn't reached cohesion or immersion yet, it's on the way.” Read the full review here.