For some years now, Maribyrnong has built its reputation as a 'Festival City' with a number of well-attended and well-received events on the annual calendar - such as Yarraville Festival, Lunar New Year events, Eat Drink Westside, New Year’s Eve Fireworks, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, and many more.

Our Festival City Program is guided by the Festival City Policy, which sets out the framework to attract, host, and support festivals for the benefit of residents, businesses, and cultural tourists.

While the current Policy has served our City well, supporting a strong and vibrant festivals program, the landscape around festivals and events has changed significantly, particularly over the past two years during the pandemic.

Recognising this, Council is considering broadening the framework of the current Policy, to allow for more single, or multi-day placemaking activations in main streets, parks, and civic spaces.

Where the existing Policy has predominantly supported larger, single-day festivals in main streets or parks, we're now looking to provide increased support for smaller style activations that are driven by, and also engage local communities, and can be realised in shorter time frames and more regularly.

In essence, we're suggesting a shift that would see available funding spread across a broader range of activities staged throughout the year as opposed to a limited number of events funded annually.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this proposed new approach using the survey below by 5:00pm Friday 6 May, 2022