Excuse the microphones at the start. Small Malfunctions, appreciate your patience.
\"My passion is the environment, and plants and the animals and everything. So each venue (at the children's festival) has a different feel to it, and I place artists in the space that match that feel.\"
In this episode, Harley sits down with Becky Wandell, who's been running the Children's Festival (now Tin Lids) for 34 years, and Kate Day, a storyteller who first performed at the festival when she was 19 and is returning this year.
Becky's journey started in the Burnett River Folk Club in Bundaberg in the 1980s, where she and a group of friends created a space for people who didn't quite fit anywhere else. That germ of an idea grew through the magical mystery tours and folk festivals, eventually becoming what we now know as Woodford Folk Festival.
She's been there since the very beginning, working from the bottom up literally cleaning toilets at Maleny before helping to shape what the Children's Festival has become.
Kate represents everything the festival nurtures. A theatre student with dreams of changing the world through art, she walked into Woodford as a young performer and found a community that believed in her storytelling when she didn't yet believe in herself. Now, she's a public servant and teacher who return to remember she's an artist at heart.
The conversation gets beautifully personal about mentorship, legacy, and what it means to see potential in people before they see it in themselves. Harley and Becky reflect on the importance of people who sit behind the scenes, the facilitators who recognise talent and create the conditions for it to flourish. They explore the structure of the eight-venue children's program, the magic of creating spaces where kids feel genuinely respected, and why Professor Wallace's return to do Punch and Judy is such a big deal.
This episode is for:
Dive in to hear about why:
Keen to bring your kids to Woodford—https://www.woodfordfolkfestival.com
Learn more about Tin Lids Kids: https://woodfordfolkfestival.com/programme?genres=TinLids
FOR MORE: Harley Breen: https://www.harleybreen.com.au/
CREDITS:
Host: Harley Breen
Guests: Becky Wandell & Kate Day
Producer: Benny Wallington
Executive Producers: Cameron Scurrah & Bree Hickson-Jamieson
Video Editing: Nicholas Haddow
Audio mastering: Kieron Atkinson
Music by: The East Pointers
Recorded on Jinibara Country
#RadioWoodfordia #WoodfordFolkFestival #TinLids #ChildrensFestival #FestivalLife
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