FROM THE DESK OF
AUNTY MEREDITH

The Meredith Music Festival started in 1991 as a party for about 200 people. For context, back then, you could catch a plane without showing your ID, and cheese sticks were sold and consumed widely.
The nineties hadn’t yet come back into fashion, and people would drive without a GPS.
Feels like a lifetime ago, because it was.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It’s now a little vaster, a bit deeper, there’s more pageantry than in its infancy. It’s been an experiment in propagation. What was planted one year harvested the next. The spirit of ‘91 preserved and evolved, an epigenetic mutation that’s retained the original strain of DNA.

There has been some redecorating over the years, a spruce here and a shine there, to keep the radiance radiating above those giant radiata pines. Many amenities have been added, the stage has been upgraded from truck to actual stage, the sausage sizzle expanded from a BBQ accompanied by an umbrella to four-star civic reception centre. It’s purpose-built to serve the ethos, to guide it into the incessant future.

This history is certainly not the complete history. It’s just some things remembered, mismembered, and documented in some way on the backup hard drive. Of course, like anything from the past that remains vital, it’s the bits not captured that are generally the more captivating. Think of this as an appetiser for whenever you get a little hungry for more Meredith.

Cheers to all who have played a part, no matter how small, and for the fond memories.

You are very much invited to Tell Us Something We Don’t Remember.