WOMAD - death of a dream?

DEATH OF A DREAM

Ten years ago Paul Lloyd was able to write in the Adelaide Advertiser ‘Enough words. WOMADelaide has reached musical perfection’. Looking back at the program that year (check the WOMAD archive) it is not hard to see why he would be brave enough to say that, and for so few to argue with him.

Ten years on, there are grumblings of discontent about the format, the logistics, the programming and most of all about the sound quality of Adelaide’s premier music festival.

Some of the concerns are small, but significant for the devotees who have been coming to WOMAD for more than 20 years.  An example: the decision to not print a souvenir program this year precipitated a small storm of protest. Did the organisers not know that for many people this was an indispensable tool in deciding what to watch when? Yes, of course there is the app (which functioned much better this year), but that is not the same as having access to hard copy.

There had been another rebellion at both entrance gates earlier, when the die-hards who had queued for some time were once again told that the gates were not to open on time. Last year the story was that the ‘new’ security company was having trouble with its communications systems – although patrons were communicating easily enough with each other at different gates. Last year that nearly boiled into rebellion over when security staff insisted that under their new contract, for the first time in twenty years, people were not allowed to bring bottled water into the event. This year, with yet another new (cheaper?) security company, the story was about OCHS, and the need to protect the public from trucks still on the ground in the park. Water was OK again. The organisation wasn’t.

Then came performances – the good, the bad and the stupid, hundreds of acts over three days and four nights. Responses varied enormously, as they always have, but things were changing.

Kaurna welcome - 2016. Photo: D Coghlan

A friend of English descent was so moved by the performance by Spiro that on a balmy early afternoon she had to leave the stage area, sobbing, and retreat to her spot at the back of Stage 2. Luckily it was Monday, and the final day of WOMADelaide 2016. The sun shone, the sky was blue, the Angus Watts flags were flying, and the crowds were so small she could return in peace to her ‘camp’. She recovered quickly, but was lucky that her cathartic experience had happened on Monday. Any other day of the four day festival she would have had to struggle through seething crowds to get ‘home’. More likely she may not have had the cathartic arts-induced experience at all. Crowds stacked thousands deep don’t expedite such experiences.

English group Spiro in full flight. Photo: D Coghlan

A close relative of mine, a hardened WOMADelaide campaigner of 20 years’ experience and dedicated frequenter of local live music venues, noted early on that many of the sound desk technicians seems to be new faces. Was this connected to the rebadging of the ‘Novatech’ stage? As it turned out, this was not the case. It seems as if a number of the acts, now grown to more like touring mini-juggernauts, brought their own sound crews. Perhaps this too is a symptom of the times. Either way, I can’t remember the last time anyone complained about the sound at WOMADelaide. This year the complaints were legion: feedback loops were common, some performers obviously couldn’t hear their fold back and were struggling to get it turned up; soloists could be seen beavering away at their instruments but the crowd was hearing nothing. Numerous people I spoke to left performances because of poor sound. By WOMADelaide standards, the sound technical skill level was well below acceptable limits.

But there were other signs of a festival culture fraying at the edges. In the past years smokers were occasionally seen lurking furtively in the bushes at the outer fringes of the park. Even without the no-smoking signs (missing this year?), it has been for a long time commonly understood that smoking anywhere else was, simply, bad form. Taboo. Even the smokers understood this. This year the smokers were everywhere – in staged areas, in eating areas, and everywhere in between. Umbrellas, long eschewed by WOMADelaide crowds (and the rules) were making an appearance – again in the staged areas, like the many high-tech and high-backed prams visible this year, blocking lines of site for hundreds. On a similar note, a WOMADeladie crowd that had for twenty years picked up its own rubbish had somehow lost the knack. The end of performances saw dozens of discarded plastic drink cups and beer cans, which were similarly deposited on any flat surface – like the table holding the sunscreen containers near the first aid tent. Who were the people doing this? They certainly weren’t the people who had been patronising WOMADelaide for the last two decades. Were they Victorians?

Managing all this is probably the job of security, but for the second year in a row they were newbies. Friendly? Yes. Effective? No. Won the contract on price? Probably – which segues neatly to the other easily fixed but much talked about problem that affected the whole festival: the toilets. Last year there were so many cleaners servicing the toilets they almost got in the way. This year the might have been wearing invisibility cloaks instead of high-vis vests, but the squalid condition of the facilities, some literally not cleaned for days, suggests that the staff simply weren’t there.  

WOMAD Monday crowds.      Photo: D Coghlan

What were there in vast numbers Friday to Sunday were people. Huge swaying crowds of them. While ticket sales appear to have been stable at around 90,000 for the four days for some years, the correlation to bodies on the ground seems to have changed. This may have been a function of programming. Having vast crowds stretching back to the furthest reaches of Stage 1 (spare us this ‘Foundation Stage’ nonsense – whose silly idea was that?) was sadly not unusual, but with the same thing happening on Stare 2 and even Stage 6 (aka ‘Novatech’ stage  – may they be long forgotten) movement around the festival became increasingly difficult and on occasions almost impossible. The experts may agree on a limit of 32,000 for Botanic Park on any one day, but something has changed in the distribution of those people. Are people getting fatter? Are they taking up more personal space? Or are changes to the programming part of the problem? Either way, while the bean counters crowed about having a full house Friday, the experience of those on the ground was way short of optimal.

So finally we come to the program. Ten years ago, when WOMADelaide had achieved ‘musical perfection’, the Friday night line-up looked like this:

·         Kaurna Welcome

·         Miriam Makeba

·         Jalsa Creole

·         Coco Mbassi

·         Gupapuyŋu Dancers

·         Sharon Shannon and Friends

·         LABJACD

·         Chakrini

·         Paul Kelly & the Stormwater Boys

·         Tommee & The Neighbourhood

·         Ravibandhu Vidyapathy

·         La Bottine Souriante

·         Joe Camilleri & Nicky Bomba

·         The Briscoe Sisters

·         Dhol Foundation

·         Chico César

·         Musafir Gypsies of Rajasthan W

·         Dr L Subramaniam with Amjad Ali Khan

·         Clare Bowditch & The Feeding Set

Only a brave person with vast musical experience who no longer wished to live peacefully in Adelaide would start an argument about the balance and content of this randomly chosen example to compare with the 2016 offerings. While the Kaurna welcome goes from strength to strength, the rest is largely in the eye of the beholder. To an untutored eye acts on offer seem to offer a similar mix of local (including Indigenous), East Asian, African, and North American influences, and reviews of the program this year have not suffered from lack of supporters. Amongst the several people I have spoken to or read about there have been mutterings about ‘not a great program, but good enough’, but one common thread has been concern about the blandness of the program overall. ‘Gentrification’ of the program has been mentioned a number of times. Yes, there were standout acts, but these were seen as that – standouts, compared to a time when most acts were remarkable in their ability to take the audience to places they had never been before.

And that, essentially, is the problem facing WOMADelaide as it heads into another decade of history.

Problems like sound quality and toilet clearing are simply technical problems that can and must be fixed. Music programming is on another level altogether, but there is a growing feeling that this matter is related to the very large crowds and the quickly shifting culture that is moving WOMADelaide from being a jewel in the world music festival scene to just another gig. Of course it will always be beautiful, as long as the roots of the ailing elm trees are protected by more than signs. Of course issues like garbage and smoking and umbrellas can all be policed, although sadly it seems no longer by the people themselves. However the sad reality seems to be that the legendary WOMADelaide of yore is changing into something less kind, less civil, less inspiring. 

Once upon a time a weekend at WOMAD left you feeling restored, feeling that the world was a good place, that problems could be collectively solved, and that we were, together, able to create a better world. It gave hope. For decades people from all over the world came and shared that dream. It’s much more than a shame to see it dying. It is heart-breaking.