We are raising funds to deliver a dazzling performance program when we bring Winter Magic back to Katoomba on 22 June 2019. It was cancelled in 2018, but we are passionate about our sustainable, vibrant, annual community winter solstice celebration and we need your help to fund it!

Katoomba's Winter Magic Festival is the most important and beloved cultural event on the Blue Mountains calendar. It's a free community event, organised by local volunteers, that has entertained up to 40,000 people a year since 1994. Running festivals is getting hard in NSW, as regulation increases, which led to the cancellation of the 2018 Festival. It was sorely missed. A new committee is bringing the Festival back, and it's going to be better than ever. But magic doesn't come cheap, and we're appealing to our community to chip in and help us revive the Festival, and celebrate its 25th birthday. 

Winter Magic costs at least $3 per person to stage because of the costs of traffic and risk management and insurance. We have spent the last 14 months working hard to address all the regulatory requirements and safety issues. We've cut costs where possible and we're going to provide the same level of fun, just in a different format. 

We have decided that instead of running the parade we will capture its energy by turning Katoomba Street, and its arcades, laneways, restaurants and hotels, into performance and exhibition spaces. To ensure it's a true community arts event we are supporting 14 community groups to present new work for us. These include Gateway Family Services, Katoomba High School, Blue Mountains Steiner, Fibres in the Mist, Toolo at Junction 142, Blue Mountains Flamenco, and festival darlings like Wagana Dancers, Ghawazi Caravan, and Hands, Heart and Feet. We'll have a carefully curated artisan market of 150 stalls. 

We also want to present 40 performances by Blue Mountains artists – music, theatre, comedy, cabaret and street theatre – and that's where you come in, dear supporters. Funding all this isn't easy. Winter Magic is free and outdoors and it's impossible to cordon off, so we can't charge people to enter, and in any case, that is not what we are about. We apply for every state and federal government grant we possibly can, and we're waiting to hear about some, but we need cash now. Our Council only provides in-kind support for things like planning and don't directly fund us. We have to find the money ourselves and the fees we charge stallholders can't cover our costs.

Winter Magic will continue so we are appealing to you, the people who know and love Winter Magic, to support us! 

The rough breakdown of costs for the 2019 Festival is:

• $25,000 for traffic management (we still need traffic control!)
• $30,000 for risk management (extra high for 2019), insurance, and event coordination costs
• $15,000 for equipment hire, loos, cleanup, and various fees
• $17,000 for the community arts projects we are supporting
• $20,000 for our musicians, street performers, and workshops
• TOTAL $107,000

Projected income:

• $75,000 for market stalls
• $15,000 committed by sponsors
• TOTAL $90,000

WE NEED TO CROWDFUND $17,000 TO BREAK EVEN AND ENSURE OUR PERFORMERS ARE PAID.

We are starting this project by asking for $8,000 but you can see we really need to raise $17,000 to be able to pay the people who fill the street with colour, movement, joy and sound, and a bit extra to cover the Pozible campaign costs. The more we raise, the better the show we provide! We'll start at $8,000 and stretch to $20,000 ... and maybe beyond?

We absolutely guarantee that we will present the Festival in 2019 but if we don't meet our target of $8,000 we will have to reduce our budget for performers and spend all our cash reserves. We will break even at $20,000. It would be really awesome if we could raise $30,000 as that would mean we can invest in future performance and art projects for Winter Magic Festivals from 2020–2025.