At a media release at the Ballarat Mining Exchange, DFB President Julie Millowick, in conjunction with the City of Ballarat, announced that the next biennale, planned for Daylesford in September 2009 would be relocating to Ballarat. The offer to stage the Festival in Ballarat comes with strong support from the City, with seed funding, wonderful venues in the Ballarat Art and Culture precinct, office space and funding and marketing support.
We had taken the festival from nothing to International recognition over the space of just two festivals, and to continue the exponential growth we needed to move to a larger population centre. Whilst Daylesford and the other small towns in the Hepburn Shire had a fairly unique attraction, widespread venues, lack of dedicated gallery spaces, poor public transport access and difficulties attracting substantial sponsorship were all factors that were taken in to account when the board made their decision to relocate the festival. That said, we hope Daylesford, Creswick, Trentham and Clunes will continue to host Fringe events as part of BIFB 09.
