A North East festival, which will run for the first time next weekend, is hoping to unite the community of Stanley, showcase independent musicians and reminisce over the town's old sporting days.
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The Spring Ditch family festival will be held at the Stanley Recreation Reserve next Saturday, headlined by Murray Wiggles Soul Movers and The Meanies.
Co-founders of the Beechworth Music Festival, Lex Fletcher and Rikki Raadsveld, are running the event.
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Ms Raadsveld, who is born and bred Stanley-ite, said the festival would be a tip of the hat to the former Stanley New Year's Day Sports held for over 130 consecutive years.
"I think '95 might have been the last one, insurance just took them out," she said.
"Nothing's happened here since, so what we decided was when we announced that we were going to run here, I said to Lex was why don't we do a bit of a nod to the Stanley Sports day and dig up some old memorabilia and have it on display?"
Mr Fletcher said the historical Sports day consisted of wood chop, tennis and horse competitions, dog shows, running races and wheel barrow races.
"We've just had a flood of historical photos going up on our socials, so everything is coming out of the woodwork," he said.
"But the festival, that's going to tie in really nicely to it, because in between the bands there's going to be a wood chop display, a tug-a-war display, pony rides, kids chill out zones, all that sort of thing."
The festival took its name from the local Spring Ditch mine hole, which was converted into a wetland with tree plantings by students from the Stanley Public School in the 1980's.
Padded Cell Productions Adam Lacovich will be production manager for the live music at the festival, which also includes Emilee South, Steel Wheels, Watty Thompson and opening act, the BMF Rock School.
Mr Lacovich, or Lacca as he is known to friends, said it was good to be back at work after COVID-19 had forced the pause on big events over the last two years.
"You cant quite wipe the smile off my face at the moment," he said.
"It's been a weird limbo for a long time and now it's all coming back again we've got a lot of ground to make up.
"I'm getting inquiries about all sorts of stuff, weekends are back on, people want to come out.
"I hope they come and have a great time and enjoy all aspects of the show, there's not just one aspect of it...it's going to be a good day with a good atmosphere."
Tickets are available through Humanitix. For more information go to the Spring Ditch Facebook page.
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Victoria Ellis
Victoria Ellis grew up on the Border and loves reporting for her home community. She is a University of Wollongong Journalism graduate. In 2018 Victoria was awarded the Bruce Gordon Scholarship for Journalism and completed a 10 week internship with WIN News Illawarra. In 2019 she was awarded The Border Mail's Cameron Thompson Scholarship, where she completed a three week internship, before taking up ongoing employment in 2021.
Victoria Ellis grew up on the Border and loves reporting for her home community. She is a University of Wollongong Journalism graduate. In 2018 Victoria was awarded the Bruce Gordon Scholarship for Journalism and completed a 10 week internship with WIN News Illawarra. In 2019 she was awarded The Border Mail's Cameron Thompson Scholarship, where she completed a three week internship, before taking up ongoing employment in 2021.
