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Arts Victoria Withdraws Funding For The Great Australian Wave

by Paul Cashmere - June 25 2009
photo by Ros O'Gorman

Around a dozen Australian acts will be out of pocket because Arts Victoria has withdrawn its funding for The Great Australian Wave showcases for Europe in September.

As a result of the approval for the funding on June 10th, granted in writing by the Minster for the Arts Lynne Kosky MP, Australian artists booked non-refundable airfares for the trip days before the Popkomm music conference was cancelled.

While Popkomm was the reason for timing of the trip, the Great Australian Wave planned to showcase various Aussie acts around Europe.

Last Friday, Popkomm announced that their event in Berlin this year had been cancelled just over a week after the acts heard about their funding.

Arts Victoria had agreed to kick in $10,000 for the trip. Regardless of the Popkomm cancelation, the acts were still committed to the trip to make good other dates.

“I personally think that the risk to bands, and their futures are at stake here,” organiser Steve Iorio said in a statement. “I also believe that since private individuals like Stephen, Renate and all the Aussie bands that have started spending money that was promised in the grant approval letter from the office from the Minister for the Arts, Lynne Kosky MP dated on June 10th, that the Minister should live up to the promise, and signature, and help with what may seem like not much money to a government, $10,000, but is a serious lifeline for a battling musician who has already committed money to promote be at an event”.

Steve and Renate Iorio moderated the trip last year for Australian acts and had been working on the 2009 event for 9 months.

“Since many people and bands have already put out money for flight tickets, rental, publicity and so much time and energy on the planning and logistics there was really no turning back,” he said. “The only problem is now Arts Victoria (Vic Rocks) is pulling the funding that was promised to help all the Aussie acts!!! This doesn’t mean we will quit, NO WAY. The show definitely will go on. This does mean that we will have a much, much harder time of publicizing the tour and getting the professional equipment and personnel to make the event as successful as it might be”.

With thanks to Steve and Renate, Australian acts have been able to use their resources to secure management, booking agents, record companies, distribution, publishing, promoters and contacts in Europe.

The trouble now is the turn-around, Steve Iorio applied to Arts Victoria for the funding on March 1st and only found out he was successful a few weeks back. There is not enough time to go through the process of a completely new application.

Arts Victoria does a magnificent job of supporting Australian talent in the global environment. The decision to withdraw the funding because of the cancelation of Popkomm will unfortunately will have the complete opposite effect on the artists they are their to support.