While many punters were sad to hear about the cancellation of this year’s Southbound festival due to bush fire risk, organisers and punters have managed to give the cloud a silver lining that will benefit those most affected by the fires.

As organisers write on the Southbound Facebook page, many Southbound ticket-holders have enquired whether they would be able to donate some or all of their ticket refund sum to those affected by this season’s bush fires.

“We’ve been overwhelmed with the support shown over the last 11 hours since our announcement that Southbound 2016 has had to be cancelled due to high fire risk within the area,” organisers write on Facebook.

“We’ve had a lot of feedback regarding patrons wanting to donate both part or their entire ticket refund to those affected by the fire. We are currently working to set up a system where this can be facilitated.”

“We have excess food on site which we will be offering to those who are both working to fight the fires and affected and currently working with the relevant parties to make this happen.

“We’ll keep you updated as we work on both of these initiatives. We are gutted but trying to turn our disappointment in not being able to deliver Southbound to you into a positive thing for those affected by the fires.”

“We have been working with the Department of Parks and Wildlife, Western Australia, to assist the Waroona Evacuation centre in providing meals to those affected,” organisers continue in a subsequent statement.

We’ve been overwhelmed with the support shown over the last 11 hours since our announcement that Southbound 2016 has had…

Posted by Southbound onThursday, January 7, 2016

“Our catering partner Ultimo Catering and Events have generously donated over 2,300 meals along with stock from two of our sponsors, Ice Break & Red Bull, and will be mobilising their truck to Waroona within the hour.”

As triple j recently detailed, the realisation that Southbound would have to be cancelled came at about 4pm the day before the event was set to kick off. Both highways to the festival site and the only alternative route had all been compromised.

Unlike Falls Festival Lorne, the event could not be moved to another site in time to proceed. According to Southbound director David Chitty, the cost of cancelling Southbound 2016 was “at least several million dollars”.

“It’s a significant event for [Western Australia] and there’s lots of money involved to put it all together on and put it on,” he told triple j. Fortunately for organisers and performers, the event is fully insured.

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“We had conversations with [the insurance assessor], with the police. We made a conscious decision to engage [the insurance company] in the entire process given the amount of money involved and the amount of people who still need to be paid for their services,” he said.

As a result, all the bands will be paid. “Artists are over here from the other side of the world, obviously they’re sympathetic but it’s not their fault and they need to be paid for time that they would be able to perform for their income elsewhere so in our contracts the artists are protected.”

Chitty also doesn’t think the cancellation will affect next year’s event. “I think it makes it stronger,” he said. “We’re in a position where we’re fully insured to deal with the financial issues.”

“We weren’t sure how it would be received by [cancelling the festival] but the ways it’s turned online and through the media is really, really positive.” More details about refunds will be unveiled on Wednesday, 13th January.

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