Festival fanatics and Inner Varnika founders and directors knew that there was a hole in the Aussie-event landscape after partying their way through the international festival circuit and comparing it with local dance fare.
Specifically, the founders could see a call for an intimate, electronic dance festival with a single stage showcasing a carefully curated lineup of local and international talent to which punters may not otherwise be exposed. “The festivals on offer were large, multi-stage events, catering to large audiences with attendance figures of upwards of five, ten thousand people, with a plethora of international and local acts – so many that you’d never be able to see everybody,” they say.
Couple that with the fact that Inner Varnika had a clear vision about the artists they wanted to see, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be getting a local audience otherwise, and the imperative for a DIY festival took hold. “We thought we’d have a crack at it,” they say.
Realistically, the Inner Varnika crew have had more than a crack at it. After its inception in 2013, tickets for the festival have sold out every year, and they’ve allowed its initial and modest cap of 500 punters to slowly swell to 2000. There’s no intention to let it expand further though, in terms of attendance numbers or stages – it’d defeat the purpose. “We don’t have any plans of ever getting much bigger than this,” Inner Varnika confirms. “We want to be a small, intimate festival. We think that there’s something special about having an event of just one stage – there’s a real community feeling around the fact that everybody’s listening to the same music.
“You don’t have your friends listening to one act and then meet up with them hours later when you’re on totally different pages: everyone’s experiencing the same thing. By the end of the festival, you’ve made some fantastic connections, whether or not they just last for the festival or go back into the real world. It’s about intimacy and programming for us.”
On the programming front, many on this year’s lineup are game leaders, including living funk legend and onetime member of George Clinton’s groove extravaganza Parliament, Amp Fiddler. But just as importantly, the lineup’s also stacked with the lesser-known gems that founders are aching to share, like Brussels duo Different Fountains. “We feel like it’s our responsibility to bring over acts that we’re really fond of and open them up to an Australian audience,” the directors say.
For the last few years, Inner Varnika’s found home a stone’s throw from Bookaar in Victoria’s western district in what they describe as a “beautiful, martian landscape.” The fact that the festival is welcomed back by the local community and landowners is testament to its strong ecological ethos – for instance, there are onsite-recycling depots, the loos are composting, and the bar has a zero-waste policy, ie. no straws, no plastic cups, and you lay down a deposit for a mug at the outset, getting a refund at the festival’s conclusion when you return your receptacle in one piece.
Staying put has also allowed Inner Varnika to form good relations with the local community. “We’ve been able to foster relationships and get the community involved in ways that you couldn’t by moving around each year.” Take Suit Sunday for example, whereby a tradition has sprung up of donning formal gear for the last day of the festival. “It’s great for the local economy and all the op-shops get bought out,” the directors say. “Everyone looks pretty dapper on the last day, whereas usually at festivals everyone looks haggard.”
Although the Urban Dictionary curiously defines Varnika as “a girl with very curly, springy, black hair that everyone loves to touch,” it’s truly an Indian word for gold or moon, befitting of Inner Varnika’s luminous, numinous vibe.
“The pressures of day-to-day life can be quite heavy sometimes. I think that’s where festivals, not just music festivals, come into play and are so important, because they nourish the soul. Even though it’s a deeply personal thing, when you let go and enjoy yourself for three days, you can take that feeling back into the real world.”
