Good news is scarce at the moment, with constant announcements of cancellations and reschedules, but this morning we have some reprieve from the negativity with an official Save The Date announcement from Unify Gathering regarding the 2021 instalment of the heavy music Mecca.
The lorded destination event has confirmed it will once again return to its home of Tarwin Lower in Victoria for a weekend of festivities that can only be described as Christmas for emos. As with other years past, the festival will also take place in High Summer, going down between January 21 through to January 24.
Adding even more substance to the announcement, organisers have confirmed their master plan for the event – to dedicate it to the Australian music scene with an All-Aussie line up. Going above and beyond to cater to bands who may have been impacted by the current Unpleasantness, organisers have also announced they’ll be scrapping any exclusivity clause for those booked to perform, meaning bands can book other shows around their Unify performance, allowing more breathing room to recoup from any potential recent cancellation.
“While UNIFY prides itself on connecting with the global heavy music community,” organisers said in a statement, “it was with the local community of artists, crew, agents and managers that we launched our festival in 2015. In that first year, it felt like most of the Australian heavy music community got together to create one of the most memorable weekends of our lives. At the time, Australian heavy music artists were mostly unable to play festivals in AUS. We launched UNIFY because we wanted to see what it would be like for The Amity Affliction, Northlane and In Hearts Wake to play 40 minute sets at night at a festival. Looking at that lineup, it included many of the bands that defined the next half decade of Australian music, and that poster has become an iconic moment in the history of this community.”
You can read the full statement from Unify organisers below. For regular updates, you can follow the official event page.
Unify Gathering 2021
Line up announcement and ticketing information to come.
Thursday, 21st January – Sunday, 24th January
Tarwin Lower, Victoria
Statement from Unify Gathering organisers
It’s no secret that the music industry is one of the hardest hit industries by the current situation, and our hearts go out to the artists, crew, agents and managers that have lost their entire touring plans with no certainty of when it is coming back. This festival launched in 2015 with entirely Australian artists, and we’ve had the pleasure of having pretty much every heavy artist in the country perform across our six events. Now we want to invite all of them back for a celebration of this community and everything it provides. We hope to get back as many artists as we can. We’ll be pushing dates back a week to make the January 21 – 24 weekend in 2021.
In all of this chaos, one message stands as true as ever: music saves lives. It’s the inspiration in our lives and it’s the basis of communities that can band together to survive through tough times. We wanted this announcement out now to declare our intentions, and give the people in our community something to look forward to.
While UNIFY prides itself on connecting with the global heavy music community, it was with the local community of artists, crew, agents and managers that we launched our festival in 2015. In that first year, it felt like most of the Australian heavy music community got together to create one of the most memorable weekends of our lives. At the time, Australian heavy music artists were mostly unable to play festivals in AUS. We launched UNIFY because we wanted to see what it would be like for The Amity Affliction, Northlane and In Hearts Wake to play 40 minute sets at night at a festival. Looking at that lineup, it included many of the bands that defined the next half decade of Australian music, and that poster has become an iconic moment in the history of this community.
We are also aware that Australian artists are right now doing their best to reschedule current dates and look for opportunities that can work once life resumes. As such, UNIFY will also have no restriction on artists wanting to do tour dates surrounding our dates. We also won’t worry about putting through artists that played last year or the year before. It’s not about exclusivity for us, it’s about community.
We will be back with more details soon, but for now please join the event page to stay up to date as we roll out.
