Your first Uranquinty Folk Festival
The Basics
Accommodation
Food
The Experience
Written unwritten rules
The Basics
The Uranquinty Folk Festival (referred to by everyone affectionately as "Quinty") is a small and friendly festival set with camping around the town oval.There are two venues on site: the hall and the tennis hut which provide entertainment, but now that the local pub has reopened Friday night is located there.
Bring warm clothes because it can get very cold! Bring a chair, a rug and a flask so you can sit in and enjoy the music at the bonfires around the campsites.
Alcohol is permitted, but remember the festival is family-friendly.
Dogs are welcome but please keep them under close control and clean up after them. If you bring a dog this means you. Even if you've always brought your dog and never bothered before, it means you! ALL DOGS ON LEADS AT ALL TIMES AND CLEAN UP AFTER THEM! Transgressors will be handed over to the cheese police. You have been warned!
Accommodation
Most non-local attendees camp on site, around the edge of the oval. There's free camping, excellent loos and showers, Kids and dogs are most welcome (keep at least the latter on leads at all times and clean up after them!). Tents, camper vans, caravans are all welcome. Spaces do fill up quickly. The sites do not have power or water. There is a location for disposing of grey water.Vehicles are allowed in the campsite but please don't drive across the centre - it wrecks the cricket pitch.
Wood is provided for a number of bonfires around the camp site which serve as centres of warmth, fellowship and music well into the night.
Advice for setting up your campsite
- Talk to your neighbours as you set up your camp. They will most likely happily advise you which direction to pitch your tent to avoid rain and wind, and point you to where the vital facilities are. And you will make new friends!
- You may find there are people who have been camping in a particular spot for decades, but most of them will have already set up long before you arrived, so you are unlikely to ruffle feathers where ever you decide to camp - but do try to be flexible if someone does approach you about moving your tent a bit to let someone else fit their tent in.
- Once you are in you are in. In general, it is preferred that you set up camp and then move and park your car outside the fence, so that if you have to go somewhere you won't disturb anyone, or tear up the grass more than is strictly necessary.
Food
It is best
to be prepared and bring at least some of your own food. That
said, the Uranquinty Pub is a great local option for a pub meal,
and the Quinty
Bakehouse has award winning pies and pastries.
The Experience
The Quinty pub is usually the venue for the opening concert from 6pm and an opportunity for a (quiet and respectful) "meet n greet" and to purchase weekend tickets. And, of course, it's our world-class bonfire sessions around the oval till the wee small hours.
A full
program of events in the hall and the tennis hut - including
poets' breakfasts, blackboard sessions, women's concert, quinty
choir, featured performers, bush dance, singalongs and much
more. During the day, we also have a range of activities for
kids. The afternoon concert in the Hall is Acoustic and the
Tennis Hut is predominantly blackboard. Of course, there will be
still more world-class bonfire sessions around the oval till the
wee small hours. Sunday afternoon is now the famous Quinty
Chorus Cup.
Monday is a lazy day for people able to stick around and avoid
the traffic - including events such as the veggie bowls, and
wrapping up with a community dinner and even more bonfire
sessions.
The written unwritten rules
If you haven't been to any or many folk festivals (large or small), you might feel a bit bewildered and lost and maybe even lonely. Don't know if you can just join in with that group of people around the fire? Don't know how those people playing folk tunes all night seem to know psychically what to play next? (nor do we) Don't know how to meet new people?
Don't worry, we are here to help! We don't have all the answers, but hopefully the following will give you a bit of a guide, and courage to join in and make some new friends.
Campfire etiquette
- Pause
as you come close to the campfire. Listen and observe.
If someone is making music, don't interrupt.
- If the
people around the campfire appear to be taking turns around
the circle to perform, it is polite to insert yourself further
around the circle, so that you have time to listen
respectfully to other people before performing yourself.