“SEND in the clowns”, The National Folk Festival has announced the end of funds for The Majestic program at the annual festival.

It’s not really a surprise. The Majestic was invented when the ACT Government’s Multicultural Affairs unit controversially handed it to the Folk Festival with three years’ funding from 2010-12.

Readers will recall that it was preceded by the highly successful Multicultural Fringe under the directorship of Jorian Gardner, the demise of which was something of a mystery to the ACT arts community.

As the Folk Festival sees it, the event “nurtures the participation of young people in the folk arts. It also helps to bridge the generational gap and provides a sense of continuity of the tradition, with young people freshly interpreting folk arts for this era”.

The realisation that defunding is inevitable comes at a tight time for the Folk Festival itself, but staff have paid tribute to the present director, Adam Hadley, as “a wonderful impresario and maestro of a uniquely developing brand of theatrical and magical mayhem that embraces music, dance, drama, vaudeville spoken word, poetry, circus and general chutzpah – now including such things as ‘Bush vs. Slam’ (Poets), ‘Circus vs. Morris’ and ‘Folk vs. Folk’!”.

The National Folk Festival is now appealing to the community to help continue providing for younger audiences, and has suggested its Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status, with the Federal Register of Cultural Organisations (ROCO), which allows donations (even as small as a few dollars) to be claimable as tax relief.

So when you make a donation, provide your full details with postal address etc, the NFF will issue a tax receipt that will allow you to claim tax deduction on your donation.

You can donate by sending a cheque or money order to: National Folk Festival Saving the Majestic! PO Box 179 Mitchell ACT 2911, or you can make a direct deposit into the National Folk Festival Public Fund if you wish but email fm@folkfestival.org.au with your address details, to say you have done so to enable them  to issue a tax receipt.

The account details for the public fund are: National Folk Festival Public Fund Bank: Commonwealth Bank BSB: 062-900 Account Number: 10138634 If you wish to donate using your credit card, use the form available at  http://www.folkfestival.org.au/donations-and-sponsorship