Well, this is as much Mum’s story as it is mine because she’s been bringing me to the festival my whole life.
I was born on the 23rd of December, so obviously missed that year, but since then I’ve been to every one. Mum’s from Eudlo used to come when the festival was at Maleny and the armbands were wooden tags with ‘Maleny Folk Festival’ burned into them.
We always come for the whole week. Mum and I are the professional camp set-up team, the chaos of setup isn’t really Felix’s thing. We love dressing up in incredible costumes, Mum’s mum is a seamstress, so we’d make unique costumes. One year we had matching tutus. Mum’s was black with a glitter top, and mine was a red polka dot tutu. Apparently, I got into the water at the Duck, in my tutu.
Another year we had matching cat costumes, or we’d come as elves and fairies. One year, Mum brought a wheelbarrow to wheel us children around in. We spent lots of time at the children’s festival, we’d roll in early in the morning and set ourselves up under the big tree, which is massive now, and Mum would have a bit of a rest.
We often camped with an amazing family of friends, whose daughter would babysit, so Mum could go out at night. We made heaps of friends, some of them are ‘Festival Friends’, who you’d only ever see at Woodford and you’d be really happy to meet up with again.
We always watch Flipside Circus, in fact, we’ve watched kids grow up through Flipside and leave and start their own shows, and then we’ve seen those shows too. Sometimes performers recognize us in the audience. We saw one once at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that we knew from Woodford, and he recognized us.
We’ve seen all the weather Woodford has laid on, and we’re still loving it. It’s like international travel, so totally worth it for all the experiences you have. When I have children I will 100% continue the tradition of coming to Woodford!”
