Loss of Rock Eisteddfod a 'disgrace'
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Rock Eisteddfod axed due to reduced funding (AFP: Torsten Blackwood)
The annual schools' Rock Eisteddfod Challenge has been cancelled across Australia due to a lack of sponsorship and support.
The event has been axed after three decades because reduced support was pushing ticket prices ever higher.
Organisers say it was getting beyond the budgets of some families.
Rock Eisteddfod executive producer Peter Sjoquist says South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and New South Wales had reduced their support, with Queensland the only state offering more.
Mr Sjoquist says the organisers are terribly upset and disappointed, but do not feel they have enough funding to put on a professional show for the first time in 30 years.
He says they will keep trying to get the show back up and running.
"We know that there's a lot of passion out there," he said.
"The teams can be anything up to 120 in size, so it's large teams of students across different age groups, so you've got the situation where lateral thinking, problem solving and all those sort of issues as a nation we need to be encouraging."
Mr Sjoquist says it had been costing $4 million to stage the schools performance event.
"This has been 30 years, over one million students participated in the event, so we're very disappointed," he said.
"The event has such a depth in the community, it's community building and we're just devastated."
The Eisteddfod was still getting a federal contribution.
Funding promises
The South Australian Opposition says it is a "disgrace" that the Government there had halved its contribution to $10,000.
SA opposition education spokesman David Pisoni said the Liberals would double the funding if elected on March 20 and would call on others to give more, so the event might be restored.
"What sort of message does it send sponsors when state governments aren't even prepared to sponsor an event like this?" he said.
"The Government cut its funding from $20,000 to $10,000 - we would immediately restore that $10,000 that the Government has removed."
SA's Assistant Arts Minister John Hill says more money is available if organisers can convince the Government the event can be a success.
"If we can assist them [to] get the model right, get more kids involved, then we're happy to put some funding behind what they're doing," he said.
"But at the moment there's concerns about the number of kids, the number of schools and the size of the audiences.
"That's the harsh reality, if they don't deliver they're not going to get the support."
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