Now the votes have been tallied and the wrist bands ripped up, it is official : Australia’s best festival of the last twelve months is Golden Plains. Brought to us by the same folks who dreamt up Meredith Music Festival all those years ago, Golden Plains is only two years old and takes place at the same Supernatural Amphitheatre as its big sister in the township of Meredith.

Aunty Meredith, the matriarch of the festival and the proud recipient of the first ever Festival Award in Australia, took some time out to let FL know just how proud she is of her festival children.

Hello everyone, its Aunty Meredith here. Goodness me I cant believe we’ve actually won this one. Jesus fucking Christ, I didn’t think we had a hope in hell. The last thing I won was $8 on the dishlickers in 1976. I’ll be having a very stiff shandy or six when I finally get back to the Moonlight Grove Caravan Park tonight.

On behalf of the Golden Plains Organising Committee and the Nolan Family I would like to say thank you very much for this wonderful accolade. Best Overall Festival – wow. I knew telling everyone to wear overalls would one day pay dividends. Just wait till I tell that Beryl from 13b. How she pooh-poohed me at the time.

Seriously though we really are thrilled to the back teeth to receive this award and we’d like to thank everyone that comes along to Golden Plains and voted for her. She’s still a young festival and just starting to find her feet, so to get this award early on in life is pretty miraculous. Thanks also to the townspeople of Meredith and the Golden Plains Shire who are such supportive and understanding hosts. Our sincere thanks also to Faster Louder for putting on the awards, it’s a terrific acknowledgement that festival life is a major part of Australian life and it seems that won’t be changing any time soon. Lastly I would like to say, quite sincerely, that a major reason why Australian festivals generally are so popular is that they are VERY, VERY GOOD, and a major reason why they are good is that they are generally run by good people who constantly strive to better what they did last season. So the standards across the board are remarkably high.

So thank you very much indeed, and to everyone involved in festivals, all the best for a vintage season.

Aunty Meredith
On behalf of the Golden Plains Organising Committee

CHECK OUT ALL THE FESTIVAL AWARDS WINNERS IN PICTURE FORM HERE!