Festival’s attendance grows, waste goes

WA’s only zero waste music festival will have a brand new venue when it returns next month for its second edition.

Previously held at Guppy Park, the Across the Road Music Festival will now be held at the Graham Bricknell Memorial Music Shell on February 9, upping its capacity from 200 to 800 people.

“We wanted to start off with a smaller version and then scale up,” event organiser Kelsie Miller said.

“It let us try a lot of the zero waste strategies, see what worked, what didn’t and what we needed to change.”

Brad Earl from Zero Point Energy was put in charge of the festival’s waste management and said the predicted waste output of the food vendors was shaping up to be so low it was almost a problem.

All of the food and drink containers will be recycled according to Mr Earl despite the quadrupled capped capacity. The festival line-up will be headlined by Great Gable with support from Demon Days, Marmalade Mama, Dulcie and Matt Sevier.

“A good 80 per cent of the musicians playing are ex-Bunbury people,” Ms Miller said.

“The idea was to showcase WA bands, but I’m really excited we’re showcasing a lot of South West musicians as well.”

The festival will coincide with the end of the Bunbury Fringe Festival earlier the same that day.