Falls Festival The Village: Co-Artistic Director Ian Pidd

Answering the phone in sunny Queensland, Melbourne based freelance director Ian Pidd, can’t contain his excitement about the upcoming Falls Festival in both Byron and Lorne where Ian is co-artistic director of the boutique festival within Falls called The Village.
“The village sort of exists as a separate parallel organisation to Falls, but we’ve been doing Falls now for 10 years and we totally fuckin’ love it. It all began simply with the founder of Falls, Simon, calling me up and saying, ‘Hey come do some of the crazy village shit with us’ and my first reaction was, ‘No no no that won’t work very well’ but Simon was right.”
The programming for the festival is quirky. Littered with the familiar and the exotic, with bands like Sex on Toast, Eight foot Felix, and comedic shows like ‘Lesson’s with Luis’ set to grace the stage.
“The idea for it from the very beginning was to have a zone within a big banging rock and roll festival that was surprising and spontaneous, also with a whole lot of stuff going on that wasn’t stuff that people knew about, but was stuff they would love: puppetry, circus, stand up,” he says.
“But also a zone where people could be involved in making stuff; workshops, participatory projects and parades, as well as ‘so you think you can interpretive dance’ competitions.
“It’s cool to be part of a crowd of 15,000 people bouncing up and down to your favourite band but it’s also cool to be in a tent with 150 people where you’re the star all of a sudden.”
Keeping things interesting year after year proves no challenge to Ian. “We collaborate with splendid artists, really really fantastic people who also love coming to Falls. So at the end we always talk to our favourite artists and they always come up with really cool ideas. We always manage to come up with a bunch of new stuff every year as well as keeping some of our favourite things going.”
This year The Village has some new additions with The Glambulance coming into play. “It will be making the rounds through the village, they’ll make you a costume and give you some glitter make up and teach you a few dance moves,” Ian says adding it’s in case you’re feeling a little bit drabbed.
Not only does The Village have The Glambulance but they will also be playing Battle Island which is a full sized human board game, “On the last day we are going to play a chess game, the chess pieces will be human beings in really cool costumes.”
Ian has also organised a bunch of guys who are going to be breaking outrageous world records. Not all work and no play, Ian confesses he can’t wait to catch Courtney Barnett and Hilltop Hoods at Falls. So be sure to check out the crazy eccentricity that is The Village this year at Falls Festival!
Written by Jariah Travan
When & Where: Falls Festival, Byron Bay (Dec 31-Jan 3) & Lorne (Dec 28-Jan 1).