Save the Date: The 29th Yackandandah Folk Festival
20 – 22 March 2026
Well, that’s a Wrap!
The 28th festival has just about been put to bed, save for a few last minute jobs to be completed. A few new innovations happened this year, including the use of battery-powered LED lighting towers, which we should have more news on in the future. The debut of our “Chill Out Space” for parents with infants who needed a quiet place to breast feed, change nappies and generally take a breather, proved to be a big success. One of our locals, Alex from Yack Drone, has taken loads of aerial and groud-level video footage of the various happenings, alongside our shutterbugs Dan and Maggie over the weekend. As soon as it’s all gone through the editing process, we will get samples up on our website. Speaking of which, now YFF 2025 is done and dusted, work will soon begin on building our brand new website, which promises to be bigger and brighter than this one, with lots of interactive features. Following an absence of several years, the Saturday Night Community Dinner, organised by Yack Primary School volunteers, made a welcome return & proved to be a big success with over 500 meals served! They also helped feed our starving musicians too! Our Food Vendors did swift business with all of them reporting good sales.
What were your highlights of 2025? As usual, our Friday night Street Parade, attracted lots of onlookers and was a great way to open the festival proper. The Bush Dance was also well attended as one of our major free events. I have never seen so many people in the beer garden of the Star Hotel as we had on Saturday night! So packed were we that the “Venue Full” order had to be given to our ticket checkers for a while. Music-wise, I guess there were a few performances that stood out for me. If you like high energy klezmer/gypsy jazz, then Gusto Gusto!, would have been hard to top. Dean Owens and the Sinners from Scotland were fantastic too with a style that at times, was reminiscent of the soundtracks to the spaghetti western movies of the 70’s. If your taste ran to hard, guitar-driven rock, then the boys from Doc Halibut, would have been your go to band. The smooth neo-soul of Ireland’s Si`omha, also won quite a few hearts I’m told. The Tuck Shop Ladies, made us laugh out loud and proved to be very popular, with all of their gigs well attended. Euroa locals, Clean Coil, who won our 2024 Yackoustica competition, put in a performance to remember, opening the Sunday roster at The Star. If that is any indication, their future in music looks very bright indeed. Yack local, Jack Gregory, gave some very polished shows and displayed stagecraft well in advance of his 15 years. It’s just possible you may have witnessed an early performance by a future Golden Guitar winner if you caught one of his shows! Another “toe in the water” exercise musically, was the Saturday night Blues Jam, featuring Jo Jo Smith, Dean Haitani, Fiona Boyes and Phil Coyne and his Wayward Aces. If it hadn’t been for our 12am curfew, they appeared to be primed to play well into the wee small hours! Judging by the size of the crowd, I’d say this experiment was a big success! Perhaps, we’ll try a folk jam in 2026-who knows? Watch this space!
A few important thank yous to mention: Yack local Callum from The Lincoln Hotel in Wodonga, who staffed our Marquee Bar all weekend; our YFF Treasurer Dave and his wife Kath, who took on running the bar at the Public Hall at the 11th hour with help from friends; the boys from Yack Men’s Shed, who drove visitors around all weekend in our courtesy bus; Sarah and her army of decorators, who always help give the town and our venues that festive feel; our venue sound techs, who make sure our performers sound fabulous. Finally, on behalf of the entire YFF organising committee, I offer a heartfelt GRACIAS, to all of our hard-working, selfless volunteers and also the Yack locals who offer to billet performers. It’s wonderful to see so many familiar faces, who return year after year. We simply could not have done it without all of your valuable assistance. The date for next year’s festival appears above. Please note it in your calendars and we hope to see you back in Yack then if not before.
Feedback Survey
Released during the festival, is our 2025 feedback survey, which will shortly be available online. Paper copies will also be available for locals from the Yack Post Office too. If you can, please take the time to fill one out. This sort of feedback, will be an invaluable tool to assist us in planning another great event next year.
