Why Festival Of The Sun Has 'No Desire' To Be Bigger

"I was actually playing in a band at the time,” recalls Scott Mesiti, co-founder and programmer of the Port Macquarie-based Festival Of The Sun, fondly dubbed FOTSUN, of his initial involvement.

“Simon [Luke] had been running Festival Of The Sun [since 2001] as a community event, which was free on the town green there in Port, and I played it two years in a row, and we were knocking heads together and I said to him, ‘Would you like to grow it,’ and he said, ‘Yes, most definitely,’ and so I started picking the bands and he started putting the event together and we just went from there.”

Hardly the epicentre of Australian contemporary music, Festival Of The Sun has proven a valuable asset for not only the NSW mid north coastal resort town some 390 km north of Sydney, 570 km south of Brisbane, but also for the local musicians.

“I think the best thing about our festival is its location. It’s right in the middle of town, so once you get there and park you don’t have to drive anywhere within [festival site] Sundowner Tourist Park. It’s got everything from cabins to camping, proper toilets and showers and it’s only 50 metres from the beach. So it all kind of adds up as one neat package. There are a lot of great musicians around in Port and there are a lot of cool bands starting to come out of here as well. And not just Port Macquarie, but the mid north coast – surrounding towns – as well. So playing the festival is a good little leg up for them and hopefully they can take the ball and run with it.”

"Obviously, with any business you’re always looking to expand, but whenever we looked at it, we always thought that it would kind of dilute what really creates us, you know?"

A Sydneysider at the time, Mesiti was playing bass in the three-piece Gabriel’s Day back in 2002–2003, and later founded Usync, an online sales and marketing tool for indie bands. He’s also the director of a company called Cross Section and looks after the management of, among others, Floatingme and Nat Col & The Kings.

“We’re more than open to putting on the odd international artist if they’re in the country at the time, but we certainly don’t go looking for them because part of our goal was to support Australian music as much as possible and bring it to a regional centre.”

In a sense then, FOTSUN is a precursor of the likes of Groovin The Moo, and it really is a boutique festival, a celebration of east coast summer culture opting to cater for only the 3000 music lovers who buy tickets.

“We could go bigger but it’s not our desire in any way. Obviously, with any business you’re always looking to expand, but whenever we looked at it, we always thought that it would kind of dilute what really creates us, you know? So we just work on being the best event we can and keeping it boutique and really friendly.

“It’s a pretty good achievement, you know,” Mesiti says of the festival’s tenth anniversary as a ticketed event, which, by the way, is sold out. “If you had’ve asked us in 2005 if we’d be here in 2014, I’m not sure we’d say, ‘Most definitely.’”

The line-up for the tenth anniversary edition features The Jezabels, Violent Soho, Shihad, Allday, Dune Rats, Jackie Onassis, The Cairos, Apes, Steve Smyth, Goons Of Doom, The Lazys, The Stiffys, Tora, Sons of The East, Tropical Zombie, Pelican Itch, I Oh You DJs, Karl S Williams, Timberwolf, Chris Rose, Tegan Wiseman and one lucky triple j Unearthed winner. Oh, and there is one international in the line-up, Canadian singer-songwriter Tim Chaisson.

“Basically I’m just seeing who’s got something in the market,” Mesiti says of programming the festival, “somewhere between that May to December period. I just try to see as many bands as possible to see if they’ll fit our party kind of atmosphere. It’s a mix/match of genres as well; we don’t try and put too much of the one thing on. For me, I’m really looking forward to Shihad. I’ve just really loved that album [FVEY] this year and I saw them at BIGSOUND and can’t wait to see them at the festival. They’re playing that six o’clock slot when the sun starts to go down and I just think it’ll be epic. And the festival works perfectly as a BYO event. Obviously we work very closely with police and we limit the amount of drinks people can bring in to the entertainment area, and it is probably one of the biggest factors that keeps everybody nice and chilled. I think it’s one of the things that makes us really unique.”

FOTSUN has also taken up the idea of running with a theme, so that, if you’re into it, punters can this year dress up as their favourite superhero.

“That was kind of about taking people back to their childhood. Being our tenth birthday, we thought to ourselves, okay, what sort of birthday would someone have when they’re turning ten? And that’s what we came up with. We had our first official theme last year – it’s was like a Day of the Dead theme, because we landed on Black Friday – and the response was amazing and I think that sort of thing is here to stay for us. It’s a really good element. Basically our festival is a nice big beach party.” So, it’ll be BYO “fizzy drinks and party punch” time.