NOT ON IN 2002 - BUT LIKELY TO BE ON AGAIN IN 2003

After overwhelming telephone enquires, Mountain Bay explains why it is not running the Mountain Bay Country Music Festival in 2002:

The Mountain Bay Country Music Festival was run in March, 2000 and March, 2001, with an attendance of 8,000 over the four days last March. The Festival was widely regarded as the most professionally run festival with the best of Australia's Country Music artists that has been run in Victoria.

Our motivation was to build the Festival to rival the Gympie Country Music Muster, which attracts over 30,000 individuals each year, and the Tamworth Country Music Festival, which attracts some 100,000 attendees each year. The economic value to Gympie and Tamworth is in the tens of millions of dollars per year, and this was what we had hoped to provide for Mansfield and for charitable causes that we support.

For the record, the 2001 Mountain Bay Country Music Festival cost us $400,000 to stage, of which we recouped $300,000 in revenues.

The only reason that the Festival is not to run in 2002 is because we have never been able to arrange any support, financial or otherwise, from the Delatite Shire, the Mansfield District Tourism Association or Mansfield businesses. Further, Tourism Victoria's support was expected to decline due to the lack of any local support being interpreted as a lack of serious local interest in building a major festival. Consequently, we could see no point in continuing to fund the Festival on our own when there is no matching local financial or tourism based interest.

Nevertheless, and subject to local support, both moral & financial, Mountain Bay will consider running the Mountain Bay Country Music Festival again in March, 2003.

If you feel that local power brokers have underestimated the value of the Mountain Bay Country Music Festival to Mansfield, Victoria and Country Music Fans, you could write, fax or telephone the High Country Times to have your views transmitted to the area:

Mr. Michael Ray,
The Editor,
High Country Times,
85 High Street, Mansfield, Victoria, 3722
Tel: (03) 5779-1599 Fax: (03) 5779-1543

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