Then there are the rising costs. The first NinchFest cost around $35,000 to put on, with the latest approaching $300,000.

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“We have grown the festival, but the prices of everything have gone up, from building materials to temporary fencing, which used to cost us about $1 a metre and now it’s $9, and the stage, which went up $2000 in just one year,” Heyes says. “These companies haven’t been able to operate for a few years.”

Bands are also raising their fees, which Heyes thinks is understandable.

“They’ve been out of work and they know there are grants out there that have been given to the music industry, so putting their prices up is their way of getting their piece of the pie,” he says.

NinchFest was awarded a $50,000 grant in 2022 from the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council. Speaking more generally, Heyes points out that many grants given out as pandemic relief were to be acquitted within one year, rather than spread over a few years to help longevity. The grants have also seen many new events crop up, including council festivals, adding more competition. It’s made the NinchFest team realise that the most obvious way forward would be to return to roots and scale down the production, finding a bush site without EPA restrictions, away from the expensive holiday accommodation of Rye.

“We don’t want to go out with a sob story,” Heyes says. “We were all sentimental yesterday and feeling sad, but there’s an easier path somewhere that will present itself. Maybe something more electronic, getting all the young people involved. At this stage, we’re really happy with what we’ve done.”

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The inevitable NinchFest “final party” post has gone out, attracting comments like that of Red, chief engineer of the Moonah Arts Collective: “It will live on in every festival that we all do from hereon in. The power of NinchFest is now within all of us.”

That sentiment is nicely embodied by The Domesticated Animals, a local band booked to play this last hurrah. The teenagers wouldn’t be the only people to say “we should form a band” while pie-eyed at a festival, but having made that vow at NinchFest in 2019, when their youngest member was just 13, they’ve stuck to it.

“All credit to Drew and everyone involved – they’ve been through the wringer,” says frontman Nash Carne, who met most of his friendship group at various NinchFests. “Hopefully we can go full circle and inspire some other kids to start a band.”

NinchFest will be held for the last time at the St Andrews Beach Recreation Club from February 10-11.

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