This weekend is the annual Ashburton Community Festival. Now a regular local community event, the Festival has, for 28 years, hosted rides, local community groups, food stalls and talent demonstrations in the centre of High Street, Ashburton.
The first Festival in 1997 was the brainchild of Liz Webb, the Marketing and Promotions Coordinator of the Ashburton Traders Association at the time. I tracked Liz down to her home in Queensland where she was kind enough to have a chat about how it all got started.
“The idea came from Keith Walter,” Liz told me. Keith was the Solway Ward Councillor from 1996-2003 and about to become the mayor of Boroondara. “He was always an advocate for Ashburton, especially after the creation of Boroondara Council when we felt pushed aside and forgotten about.”
Keith suggested that since there were already street festivals in Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew, why not one for Ashburton?
The shops of Ashburton’s High Street had the benefit of being close together, central to the community and within access to most of the schools and kinders. Liz checked with Vic Roads about closing the High Street and they were fine with it because traffic could be diverted to Toorak Road. Confident in her case, Liz went to Boroondara Council with the idea. “You’ll be right, you’ll win them over!” Keith told her.
“Vic Roads won’t let you,” came the immediate response from the other Councillors.
“You can’t close down a whole road!” came the next. This is despite Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew all closing roads to run their festivals.
“They grumbled and muttered,” Liz says. “No-one was keen except Keith.” Finally, with his advocacy, the Council relented. “‘You can hold it once,’ they told me.” Little did they know...
The Festival idea surprised the High Street Traders but they soon came around. Unsure what they could do at such an event, Liz suggested hosting games and competitions to draw people in. They chose the last Sunday of February because it didn’t clash with any other local festivals and February was the most reliable month in Melbourne weather-wise.
The community got onboard immediately. For the first Festival, Liz says, “a lady came to me and said she wanted to run a whole street Macarena dance,” Liz continued. “And she pulled it off! The whole street was doing it!”
If you don’t know the Macarena it was a simple line dance that spread across the world long before the invention of social media and "going viral" . I once did the Macarena on a table top bar in Greece at 4 am. Ah the 90s, good times.
That same year, “my son was really into building billy carts back then. So we had a billy cart race that started at the top of the hill [near the Scout Hall] and ran down. You’d never be able to get that up now!”
Liz was also keen to showcase local talent. She used her marketing connections and managed to get the producer of Red Faces (for those reading under the age of 30, this was a show similar to Australia’s Got Talent except for people who didn’t have any talent) to come and be a judge for a talent show. The talent show tradition continues today.
Other well-known people of Melbourne also made an appearance over the years. 1990s TV personality Denise Drysdale came one year and Jim Keays, the lead singer of Masters Apprentices entertained too. He lived in the area for many years. “They used to like coming because it was an easy gig,” Liz says now. “They could play a few songs, then have a few drinks and relax.”
The Kylie year was a highlight. “It was 2006 when Kylie Minogue was enjoying a career resurgence,” Liz said. “Everyone knew she was from Camberwell/Canterbury way. I got this girl to come and she looked and sounded exactly like her." The entertainer, Lucy Holmes is today endorsed by Kylie herself as the Best Kylie Tribute act and often called upon to play Kylie when the real one is not available.
She was amazing! Everyone was saying, “is it really her? No, couldn’t be, but it sounds just like her!” I just went along with it!”
“We always had a theme,” Liz says. “One year I wanted camels (2003), I can’t remember why. By then the Traders just said, ‘do what you want, we’ll just go along with it.’”
In 2011, there was a circus theme with dog fashion parades and a quilt children could draw or paint something on about Ashburton. In 2012, there was a steam train and a DeLorean car for the "Back to the Future" theme.
The bar was also a big drawcard, especially in the years of the dry area. It was first set up on Welfare Parade, near the Op Shop. The Ashburton Football Club used their liquor licence (sports clubs could hold them from 1980) to run it and their reputation to keep everyone in line.
“It was always such a good time,” Liz says. “Such a great event.”
Today, the Community Festival still draws in the crowds even if the weather has grown more erratic. The staff at the Ashburton Community Centre look forward to it. “We’re running a swap for Minecraft collectibles this year, as well as our regular book sale,’ says Natasha Kuperman, the Centre’s Marketing Manager. “It draws in people who don’t usually come to the Centre, especially if it’s hot and people want to get out of the sun.”
For myself, I usually pop down to pick up some of the CWA ladies’ famous chutneys and jams. I can not walk past a homemade chutney without buying it.
And remember, if you hear the opening bars of the Macarena ... you have a civic duty to do it!
Thanks to Liz Webb for her time and memories.
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