THE WONTHAGGI Acoustic Music Festival (WAM) will have the town thrumming on Saturday July 6, when a full day of great local musicians take to the stage and the Davidson Brothers will headline an evening concert.
During the day, street band, folk, old time, Irish, blues, flamenco and bluegrass tunes will ring out and entertaining crowds from 9:45am to 6pm.
Local musicians performing include the Invy Horn Jam, run by Strat and Lyndal who will also be playing on the day, South Dudley Tom will have toes tapping as well as Acoustic All sorts and Keachange, who have actually written a song about Wonthaggi.
There will be singing workshops with Jacqui Paulson and line dancing with Marian Wild, and there will be an opportunity for all musicians to bring along an instrument and have a jam with other attendees.
From 7pm to 10pm an evening concert will be held with Karavana Flamenco and the Bass Coast Pickers supporting the Davidson Brothers - Lachy and Hamish.
The list of awards and accolades the Davidson Brothers have earned is extensive and includes five Australian Country Music Awards they received between 2009 and 2018.
This is the first event of its kind held in Wonthaggi and was the brainchild of local artist Tessa Hubble and her family.
My family and I have always had a very big background in music and art and culture. So, we've always had a massive appreciation for that.
Tessa has lived in Wonthaggi for the past few years and her parents have recently moved to the town to retire.
They thought it would be nice to have a music festival in Wonthaggi for the locals and to draw people into the town.
We just thought we'd get some contacts start happening and apply for a grant and hope for the best.
Tessa s contacts include lead act, Lachy and Hamish Davidson, who she grew up listening to after seeing them live as a teenager with her parents.
They were an inspiration for Tessa, and she has since befriended them and also painted their portraits to enter into the Archibald Prize.
While Tessa and her family originally planned for the festival to fall in the summer last year, they unfortunately they didn't get the grant and decided to move it to winter instead.
We thought, well maybe it'll be really good for winter, so people have something to look forward to when it's horrible.
We can actually bring people together and if people are interested in wanting to have a good time, dancing and listening to music or just jamming together or whatever. It's going to hopefully give people something to look forward to every year.
There are plans to make the event an annual feature for the town with hopes of extending it to a two-day festival.
Tickets are available from try booking: trybooking.com/CRJNJ. There are multiple ticket options available, and a limited number so book soon.
WAM will be held from 9:45am to 10 pm on Saturday July 6 at the Wonthaggi Town Hall, 18 Baillieu St East, Wonthaggi.
For more information go to their Facebook page or email wonthaggiacousticmusicfestival@gmail.com.
