Ability Fest

Live music has long existed as a connective thread of spirit and unity for many. Yet, there is still much work to do so everybody can enjoy it. As the live music space continues to achieve progress in making venues and events more accessible for all, one festival has emerged as a trailblazer.

Music journalist Sosefina Fuamoli looks at Ability Fest and its impact within the Australian music community.

Music festivals can be the type of magical playground where people find their community – a community of like-minded individuals, all gathering to enjoy the art of the musicians on stage. There’s something almost tangible about being with thousands of music fans, all connected by the shared experience of live music, knowing that specific brand of energy simply can’t be replicated anywhere else.

However, such an experience isn’t one easily afforded to everybody. 

Venues and festivals around the country are still evolving to become more inclusive, yet barriers for people who live with disabilities still remain. And it is a problem that needs to be constantly addressed.

Whether it be a lack of ramps or viewing platforms for people in wheelchairs or who require walking assistance; or dedicated areas for those who experience sonic and sensory sensitivities, it is these things that people who do not live with disabilities have the luxury of not needing to think about to enjoy live music. 

They might seem insignificant, but for those who depend on these amenities and elements to simply have the same experience everyone else can, the weight of exclusion is heavy.

The discourse surrounding accessibility at live music events is one that has continued to grow in significance, and as someone who works in the industry and can acknowledge the privilege of attending many of these events, I am hoping we can continue to see the events space evolve and adapt to become more inclusive to all who want to attend and enjoy.

It is why an event like Ability Fest is so important.

The event, first run in 2018 at the Coburg Velodrome, is Australia’s first all-accessible music festival. Spearheaded by 2022 Australian of the Year and Paralympian Dylan Alcott, and the Untitled Group, Ability Fest had a simple concept at its core: a music festival that can include absolutely everybody.

That first year was something special, and I can still remember the energy at the time – it felt like a foundation had been laid for a new lane of festival and event programming in Australia. 

Attracting 5,000 attendees, the inaugural Ability Fest featured performances from artists including Tkay Maidza, Jack River, Kingswood, Flight Facilities and Client Liaison and more. It was a blueprint run of sorts but showed that with the right infrastructure in place – including more viewing platforms, dedicated pathways and amenities for people living with disability – an event like this could become commonplace within the wider industry.

Springboarding into 2019, Ability Fest continued to grow. 6,500 attended the second edition of the festival in Coburg, featuring a line-up that mirrored the elevation of the event itself: The Presets, Hot Dub Time Machine, Northeast Party House, Luca Brasi and more performing throughout. 

In an early interview about the festival, Alcott made his vision clear.

“A lot of young people with disabilities don’t get the same opportunities (as others) because they get left out” he said.

“There is a thirst in the market to branch out, at all major events because people with disabilities are consumers just like everybody else. We want choice and control over our own lives, just like everybody else and I think people are realising that.”

Attending these early events offered me the opportunity to see how a music festival like Ability Fest promoted diversity and inclusion, by simply putting the needs of others wholly ahead of its own. 

The event has remained non-for-profit; 100% of revenue raised from the festival going towards the Dylan Alcott Foundation, which helps the 4.3 million young Australians living with a disability fulfill their potential and aims. Across the first two years of Ability Fest, almost $500,000 was raised. An incredible effort for an event in its developmental stages.

Through a dedicated grant program, the Dylan Alcott Foundation exists to empower young people and through Ability Fest, it has been able to reach and cultivate a wide, and nurtured, community of champions in the making. 

“Ability Fest supports talented local artists and the work of the Dylan Alcott Foundation, empowering young people with disabilities to realise their ambitions across sports, education and employment.” Alcott has said.

The onset of the pandemic put Ability Fest into a holding pattern – as it did with events around the country – but its return in 2021 demonstrated the weight and renown the festival has within the industry but in the eyes of the public. 

Moving venues to Alexandra Gardens by the Yarra River, the line-up once again boasted some of Australia’s best loved festival names including Illy, Peking Duk, Cub Sport and Nina Las Vegas. 

As one of the first major music festivals to happen in Melbourne out of lockdown, the faith people had in Ability Fest’s, well... ability, to deliver a memorable and safe music experience showed in sales. 5,000 patrons returned to the festival environment with enthusiasm in spades, $400,000 was raised in 2021 for the Dylan Alcott Foundation, bringing the grand total of funds raised in Ability Fest’s short history to date close to $1 million. 

Which brings us to 2023.

Ability Fest returns this month, with arguably its biggest instalment to date.

Hilltop Hoods, Sampa the Great, Alex Lahey, DZ Deathrays and more are set to perform at the festival’s 2023 home of Birrarung Marr – one of the city’s gorgeous sites that will be structured to include elevated platforms, a dedicated sensory area, quiet zones, ramps, accessible toilets and pathways, and more. 

This year, Ability Fest will boast two stages and as always, will feature Auslan interpreters accompanying each performance. This element is one that is becoming normalised in the music community, broadly speaking, and it’s fantastic. 

The heart of Melbourne’s CBD, sometimes notorious for being difficult to get around, is now home to one of the most progressive and accessible festival events of its kind. We love to see it.

“Ability Fest is proudly Australia’s most accessible music festival, and this investment will make our state the accessible music capital of the world.” Alcott has said about the permanency of the festival in Melbourne.

But more importantly, the growth and development of Ability Fest in what’s been a short and tumultuous time for the music industry across the board, is testament to the strength of the concept and the team behind it.

Sure, Alcott’s profile brings certain industry weight with it, but to even have surface knowledge of the love and passion he has for empowering and uplifting the lives of people living with disability everywhere, is to know that this event is way more than a short-term, music-focused project. 

In Ability Fest’s cultivation of a unique space where everyone, regardless of race, gender or ability, is encouraged to connect over a universal love for music, a first-of-its-kind experience has been born. 

The benchmark Ability Fest has set for the wider Australian music community and by extension, the global music community, is one the organisers take with pride into each consecutive year of programming. 

2023 is set to be one of Ability Fest’s best yet, and I can’t wait to see how it illuminates Melbourne for another year – setting the standard for live music in the city for the rest of the year.