Woodford, QueenslandDespite dodging the brunt of the extreme weather, attendees at the 34th annual folk festival had the future on their minds
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If Woodford folk festival was in mourning this year, you wouldn’t have known it. The death in May of festival elder and decade-long patron Bob Hawke could have loomed large over the week-long festivities in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland. Instead, you could say, the festival’s 34th year was a celebration of his life.
It wasn’t just the neon caricature of his face decorating the newly renamed Bob’s Bar, or the speeches given by Anthony Albanese and Kevin Rudd during a session to honour Australia’s 23rd prime minister (Blanche d’Alpuget had to cancel her appearance due to illness); Hawke’s legacy lived on in Woodford’s inclusiveness, in its progressive politics, its environmental ethos and its unwavering commitment to hedonism. Certainly Bob would have wanted the party to go on – and on it did.