From little things, big things (can) grow…

Welcome to our campaign to keep the Adelaide Food &Wine Festival - an independent celebration of South Australia's food and wine scene – independent, alive and kicking into 2014.

It was exactly this time one year ago that I took the leap of faith in creating the first Adelaide Food & Wine Festival.



At first a facebook page, followed by a website, followed by a twitter account, mixed with hundreds of meetings, phone calls and sleepless nights et, voila – a new, independent, grassroots celebration of South Australia’s food and wine scene was born!

Sure, Adelaide is the "Festival State", but until 2012, we didn't have our own, independently produced statewide food and wine festival that championed our chefs, winemakers, brewers, food producers and cider-makers. A festival that made local people the heroes and rockstars.



A festival for food and wine lovers across South Australia and beyond to support the dreamers, the game-changers and innovators. A food and wine festival that you actually wanted to go to - laneway wine parties; beachside lunches, bacon trails - yes BACON trails, coffee crawls and late night feasts...

Are you still with me? I hope so, read on…



In April this year, with encouragement and support from the food and wine community and interest from you, the people, the Festival sprouted to be a program of over 30 events across South Australia.

We danced after hours with full bellies at Adelaide Central Market, ate sustainable seafood on the foreshore of Semaphore beach, partied in the sunshine alongside over 20 local winemakers at #EASTENDWINEDOWN and celebrated a South Australian icon at a tribute dinner to the one-and-only Don Dunstan, with a menu cooked up by a chef who was once his apprentice at Don’s Table (Fino's Sam Smith).

Leading South Australian women in wine gathered for lunch in a shearing shed in Coonawarra, the Riverland took a "Walk on the Wild Side", there were Harvest Beats and Blues in the Adelaide Hills and mmmmmm - a Porchetta Party in McLaren Vale.



But year one would be just the tip of the iceberg...

Looking back on 2013, I'm not sure how we did it! I personally invested all of my being into making the first AFWF a success and it grew so quickly that "making it happen" was far more important than "making it financially viable" - which is wonderful when you're in the midst of things - just not when you're faced with the bills at the end.



Many volunteers, committee members, producers and partners helped to make this year’s Festival a reality. Designers, web-builders and creatives gave their services gratis or at a formidable discount, product was donated, bags stuffed and introductions facilitated - one wonderful volunteer even hauled fresh oysters from Port Lincoln to Adelaide in time for an event!



Looking forward, we will be fortunate to be recipients of such generosity, we just do not want to have to rely upon it for our livelihood.

So - to 2014, with plans in full swing and building momentum, The Festival now needs YOUR help to ensure that we can continue on for another year, remaining independent, supporting the lesser-known producers, the start-ups, artisans and innovators and ultimately becoming a Festival that all of South Australia can be part of and proud of!

I truly hope (and even pray sometimes) that the people of South Australia*** will get behind this Festival. Vote with your fingertips on the keyboard, then with your feet at our events and ultimately with your tastebuds.

Amanda James-Pritchard

*Thanks to all the beautiful people whose pictures appear in this campaign story
**Thanks to the volunteers, committee, chefs, winemakers, brewers, restaurateurs, oyster growers, fishermen and women, producers, journalists and everyone who has helped the Festival get to this point in many wonderful ways - and especially to my husband Glenn James-Pritchard for his patience and support.
*** Of course we welcome support from non-South Australians, too!

The funds raise will go towards the most cost-prohibitive part of making a "Festival" - creating, designing, printing and distributing a program! This is about $10,000 (which doesn't cover the costs in total but allows us the peace of mind to go ahead with programming). It will go towards paying the small South Australian businesses that help me to put together the program - in online and print form.

Part of this amount will also go towards Bayley Broome-Peake of Hungry Creatives who created the pozible video for us (giving her time, effort and creative skills on the chance that the pozible campaign will be a success)! How talented is she? Thankyou Bayley.

Any actual tickets purchased as rewards (#EASTENDWINEDOWN) will go towards that specific event's production.

And of course, because rewards are based on giving you your money back in discounted tickets and special opportunities, the remaining funds will go towards the over-all bottom line of the Festival - covering things like third party insurance, toilet hire, event infrastructure, entertainment (Dr Piffle, anyone)?, coolrooms, signage, tee-shirts, posters, trestle tables etcetc (the list does go on). A little bit can go a long way.

The main objective of this campaign is to reward you for your pledge with tangible stuff.

We’ve got one festival already under our belt as well as plans for 2014 already in full swing. The true risk for us is obtaining the right amount of financial support to ensure that we have a printed and online program .