Sydney’s OutsideIn Festival is no more.
The beloved event started out in 2012 as boutique-style festival at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville, aiming to bring attention to local artists by featuring them alongside big name internationals. Over its four year span, it grew in popularity such that in 2014 and ’15 it was moved to Manning Bar so as to accommodate more artists and more punters.
So when festival organisers took to Facebook last night to announce that OutsideIn would not be returning in 2016, there was widespread disappointment from previous attendees for whom the down-to-earth festival had become a regular calendar event.
Astral People‘s Vic Edirisinghe, also the OutsideIn co-director, tells Music Feeds that the decision to bring the festival to an end was very much a result of the success of OutsideIn itself.
He says the artists signed to Astral, who were first given exposure by OutsideIn, have since grown to such a degree that managing them has become the number one priority for Astral People.
“Astral People begun first and foremost as an artist management company. As our artists were still very much developing when we started, we decided to start an international touring arm to keep the business afloat and expanding,” says Edirisinghe. “We’re extremely proud that these once ‘developing’ local artists are now spreading their wings both locally and internationally, thus requiring a lot more attention and hours from the whole office here at Astral.”
“We’re super excited to watch our management roster develop and extend the international touring arm, but eventually something had to give, and that was OutsideIn Festival.”
OutsideIn was originally created for a largely untapped market, reveals Edirisinghe – but now boutique-style festivals featuring emerging local electronic talent have become more commonplace. He hopes too, that Astral People would be able to put on another similar event iin the near future.
“It’s great to see that, even in the absence of the festival itself, what once started as a unique event in the Sydney market (a boutique festival focused on emerging international and local electronic talent) has become the format of many festival programs. Hopefully we’ll see OutsideIn’s return, in some form or another, in the not too distant future, once the timing for all involved is a bit better.”
As one of the most exciting events on the festival calender, here’s hoping that Astral People can bring something back in the near future – but for the meantime you can reminisce about OutsideIn by checking out the 2014 end movie below.
