Dallas Frasca Launches World-first Festival Coming To Australia This Year

Almost a year to the day since the inaugural Music Victoria Regional Bus Crawl, Australian music legend/APRA AMCOS Ambassador Dallas Frasca has announced A Hitch To The Sticks; a world-first festival inspired by the Victorian Government initiative.

The launch event took place at Malt Shed Brewery in Wangaratta last night and VIP guests were treated to performances by Nicky Bomba (Melbourne Ska Orchestra) and emerging singer-songwriter Liv Cartledge, who was born in nearby Beechworth.

Both of these acts have been confirmed for the new festival line-up, which will take place over three days (16-18 March). 

During her speech at Malt Shed Brewery, Frasca explained that she came away from the Regional Bus Crawl thinking about the regional areas that perhaps don’t have as many live music venues or platforms for local artists to develop their talent.

"Start practising, dudes, ‘cause you’re about to get a platform," Frasca then encouraged, adding that there will be three of these events a year in North East Victoria alone with plans already underway to take A Hitch To The Sticks to other Victorian regions as well as Queensland.

For the inaugural A Hitch To The Sticks, the bus will depart from the Melbourne CBD to take revellers to six secret gigs in venues that have never hosted live music events before, also incorporating four public events across Violet Town, Lima, Myrrhee, Tatong, Thoona, Wangaratta and Moyhu, and incorporating the sixth annual Wangaratta Down By The River Festival and Thoona Wheelie Bin Championships.

With Frasca on board as host, A Hitch To The Sticks aims to give punters a taste of what it’s like to go on tour with a band and Frasca revealed passengers can look forward to an intimate live performance by a big international act, a hedgemaze ‘artist hunt’ and celebrity hitchhikers.

There are only 50 seats on the bus with tickets on sale from 9am on Wed 31 January; click here for more details.