Last week I had the pleasure to attend Fuse Festival, Adelaide South Australia, for the first time. I was invited to sit on two panels and Sonicbids supported a showcase over the 3 day event.
Fuse Festival is an industry conference that is part of the Adelaide Fringe festival. The thing I really liked about Fuse was how personal it was. Some conferences can seem very high end where the “big boys” fly in, do their deals and fly out, which doesn’t really offer much to our up and coming artists and mangers who attend in hope of making contacts and listening to interesting panels. Fuse was the opposite. All speakers attended round table sessions which was kind of like speed dating… for the record, I have not done speed dating but it was how I imagined it would be! Anyway, we would move around every 15 minutes meeting new up and coming artists, managers, venue bookers etc. I thought this was really cool and I met some young bands that were really hungry to learn about the industry.
The showcase Sonicbids supported was very cool. When I first walked into the venue it had an immediate impression on me. The Fringe bar was a marquee set up with a full bar, timber floor decking, lounges, lamps and carnival style decor. 1st act for the evening was Shane Steer, a softly spoken singer songwriter from Adelaide who had some great lyrical phrasing that reminded me of Paul Kelly. Second on the line up was one man band Paul Appelkamp (photo to the right) from NSW who started the set by playing percussion on his guitar, had a million pedals, stomp box and a great voice to match his up-beat songs. Last on the bill was Autumn Sun, our full band for the night. Autumn Sun was a good songwriting band. Jana, the singer, was very charismatic both while singing and engaging the audience between songs. The band was solid all round.
I’d like to thank Fuse allowing me to be considerably involved in the event. The Fuse team was amazing and always helpful from management down to volunteers. A special thanks to Peta Spurling-Brown who made sure the Sonicbids showcase was extremely well organized. Can’t wait for Fuse 2011.
Scott Mesiti
Sonicbids Australia
