www.australianmusicfestivals.comFestival Information.http://www.australianmusicfestivals.com/img/festival/fairbridge.jpghttp://www.australianmusicfestivals.com/festival/66.htmlFairbridge is Western Australia’s most popular family camping festival taking place annually in April. It is a friendly celebration of folk, roots, blues, acoustic, celtic, acapella and world music in a traffic-free, self-contained bushland site at Fairbridge Village, South West Highway, 5 km north of Pinjarra, Western Australia. This year, 2011, will be the 19th Fairbridge Festival and all the signs are that the momentum and enthusiasm continues to grow. The scene is set for another great weekend of joyous music making. As well as a growing number of top international, interstate and home grown artists there are the youth and children’s festivals, numerous workshops, street theatre, a vibrant markets area, poetry and much much more to enjoy. Fairbridge Village makes a wonderful festival site, with graceful, mature bush and sweeping views over the Darling Escarpment about 100 km south of Perth’s outlying south-eastern suburbs. Over the weekend the site comes alive with music in numerous marquees and permanent buildings, as well as in the chapel, home to a now-legendary Sunday morning Gospel session and a plethora of a cappella singing in its natural habitat. The whole area of the festival is slightly smaller than that of the National at Exhibition Park in Canberra, making for a relaxed, spacious environment that never seems overcrowded even with peak crowds of around 5,000 people. The festival is now established as a major event on the WA cultural calendar with a devoted audience base, a strong pool of volunteers, and a remarkably stable organising committee led by president Carole Winfield. Its reputation has spread to the point where each year we receive well over 300 applications from acts wanting to play, many of them international and interstate. The tyranny of distance and the hideous cost of airfares to Perth put stringent limits on the number of out of state acts we can book, and every year we have to send a depressing number of rejection letters to acts we’d love to have but simply can’t afford, but we’ve got to the point where we’re putting on a show up there with the best Australian festivals and with the strength of the WA talent pool there’s certainly no shortage of quality acts. The success of the festival is an inspiring example of what can be done from the grass roots, at the far-off, sparsely populated end of the country, by a small group of people dedicated to the love of folk music and community events. We’re deeply proud of our festival, and strongly encourage any of you from “Over East” who haven’t yet been to make the big trip west one April and be part of it.