Katikati’s River Sounds music festival in February to be the last - organisers

This February's River Sounds festival - which promotes normalising discussion about mental health - will be the last, organisers say. Photo / River Sounds Festival

By Maia Ingoe of RNZ

A Bay of Plenty music festival that is a fundraiser for mental health is happening for the final time, due to sponsorship drying up.

River Sounds festival in Katikati was started to honour a life lost to suicide, and has run four times since 2013, with all proceeds going to local mental health organisations.

Jessica Dine, a co-founder of the not-for-profit Everyone Hurts Foundation, said a surge in sponsorship offers after announcing the closure was enough to put on a final show on February 15.

“We have managed to get enough sponsorship across the line to put it on in the first place. We were a bit worried at one point if we were going to have to call it off. But some of our old sponsors pulled through.”

It had been increasingly difficult to put the festival on, she said, with the amount of work involved becoming difficult to manage, along with cost of living struggles making sponsorship harder to get.

“Things change with sponsors, they’re not set in stone, and it’s been increasingly more difficult to actually get that sponsorship. Obviously there’s a recession and things like that - it makes it quite difficult.”

The festival was started by Dine and Sophie Temperton, after Temperton’s brother Ben lost his life to suicide on their family farm. The music festival, held on that very family farm, was a way to honour him and his love of music, she said.

“It’s been a really special way for her family to heal, as well. Their father, Dave, handcarved a headstone for Ben, which is on the property. And we have a tree of remembrance on the day, so anybody who’s lost somebody to mental health, can put something up to remember them by.”

Temperton is having her first baby after the festival in March, with the due date the same as her brother’s birthday. Dine said it is a “goosebumps” moment, and with those lifestyle changes, she said it was the right time to move on.

“We made the call as a charity, and also the family, as well, themselves.”

Singer songwriter Georgia Lines is set to perform at the event.

She said the festival had raised more than $100,000 over its lifetime for local mental health organisations.

“One of the most special things that blows me away every time is the way Katikati and the wider Bay of Plenty community get behind us, and all support it.”

The festival - involving music, speakers, workshops, and MC’d by comedian Cori Gonzalez-Macuer - has always been a special place, she said, and the project had tried to normalise conversations about mental health in their community.

The foundation will carry on that work in other projects after the final festival.

“That was the idea behind setting up the foundation itself, was to break the stigma and open up the conversation around how can we start normalising some of these words and conversations.

“When I myself was a teenager and through my early 20s, it was very uncommon to hear terms like, even suicide really, self-harm, psychosis and things like that.”

Money raised from the final River Sounds festival is going to Tauranga-based mental health organisation Te Puna Hauora ki Uta ki Tai.

It was expected that between three and four hundred people would be welcomed to the festival in February, with performances from Georgia Lines, Bec Sandridge, and King Kapisi announced.

Where to get help:

• Grief Support Services 07 578 4480
• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO (available 24/7)
• Youth services: (06) 3555 906
• Youthline: 0800 376 633
• What’s Up: 0800 942 8787 (11am to11pm)
• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)
• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
• Helpline: 1737

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111