HUDSON Park’s All Ages Tour show is set to kick off this Saturday, with musicians and young people working together to bring live music to Kilmore.
The tour is hosted by The Push, a Melbourne-based charity aimed at bringing safe and accessible music shows to communities and giving young people an opportunity to get involved in something they are passionate about.
The Push chief executive Kate Duncan said the tour, comprised of 18 events across Victoria, would be a great opportunity for performers and communities to get together following the difficulties of the past two years.
“What we’ve seen is that there have been some disproportionate effects on young people because of COVID,” she said.
“It’s obviously difficult to live life the same [way] as we used to and because of the bad impact of the pandemic, we couldn’t run the tour as we wanted to.
“Young people want to get involved in the music industry and we hope the 2022 tour makes up for the last two years.”
Ms Duncan said organising the 2022 tour has been a challenge.
“I think the tour organisation this year has been a bit like a Rubik’s cube, we change one event in one place and then problems come up for another place,” she said.
“We hope that what we’re able to put on will stimulate the performance sector and help get everyone behind the scenes back involved with everything.”
The tour, which started last Friday in Swan Hill, was originally planned to start in October 2021 but has been postponed twice due to COVID-19 restrictions.
In order to keep the tour going in 2022, measures such as hand sanitising, QR code check-in and social distancing where possible will be enforced. Unfortunately, there will be no mosh pit or crowd surfing as there has been in previous years.
Ms Duncan said the involvement of people from each of the towns the tour visited was key to its success.
“Because of COVID we’ve tried coordinating with local groups and councils to make sure we can stay safe in a way that works best for them,” she said.
“Local young people are also important because we can give them the opportunity to be involved in something close to them.”
For more information and to buy free tickets, visit thepush.com.au.
