Peachy Keen: Wellington’s newest festival
Words by Hannah Powell. Images by Java Katzur and Kenzie Pigman.
Introducing Peachy Keen, Wellington’s newest music festival. Featuring a female-heavy line-up and a crew built up of women, this day festival was fresh for the Pōneke region. Yo Vocal had a chat with Amber, the woman behind it all. She talked about her love for female artists, the festival, and their collaborations within the windy city. Then on April 3rd the Yo Vocal crew went along to Peachy Keen – find out our take on it too.
A huge fan of female musicians, Amber had wanted to put together an event that celebrated women for some time. After being disappointed at the season’s festival line ups, Amber felt there was an underrepresentation of females in music. “I decided that rather than just clicking ‘like’ on the posts speaking out about it, I would try to do something about it instead,” she said.
Held at the iconic Basin Reserve in Wellington City, Peachy Keen is an all-ages event with a kick-ass full female line-up. Amber tells me it didn’t begin with the intention of a 100 per cent female line-up, but rather it fell into place. “I just wanted to make sure that they were dominating the top of the poster, and we [were] at a bare minimum equally represented,” she said. With the likes of The Beths, Gin Wigmore, Benee, and Ladyhawke, the line-up featured a mix of generations of women in music. To us, this was a strong selling point.
Amber mentioned to me that as well as their line-up, they would be working with the tech girls at the Massey University College of Creative Arts, matching each student with an industry professional to learn the ropes. The security team is female-led too. “Where we can, we are working with other females in the industry, from our production suppliers and alcohol providers [to] PR agents,” Amber explained. “Where we can, we are working to break the norm.”
On Saturday, 3 April, the team headed along to Peachy Keen. The day began with KITA, picnic blankets, and Swimsuit coffee. Following suit was Chelsea Jade in her self-described cricket whites, providing us with a warm-up for our dancing feet. Up next was Paige, and then The Beths. By then, picnic blankets had moved to the surrounding slope, and the dance floor was in full motion. We grabbed some kai from the Dope food truck before getting back to it. Boh Runga and her band Stellar* were up, followed by fun duo Foley and then Ladi6’s electric set. Ladyhawke’s performance was as good as ever, and Gin Wigmore stole the show. Feet were flying, and hands were up after those two sets. Benee sent off the night in signature style. Enough said.
It was a big day at the Basin, and Peachy Keen could be deemed a reasonable success. Of course, the day will always have a downside or two. Unfortunately, due to being behind schedule, Benee and Gin Wigmore’s sets had to be cut short. The festival addressed this publicly the next day, sending out an apology on their Instagram page. Although there was a great range of food trucks, many had sold out by dinner time – not too good when the festival finished at 11. Nevertheless, it was a good day out, and we look forward to seeing how the festival will grow in 2022.
In our interview, Amber had mentioned that a shift she’d love to see in the industry “would be seeing women being booked for headline slots rather than being booked to tick a diversity box”. Peachy Keen is a big step in the right direction for a future like that.
Let’s put an end to the old boys’ club. More of female-led line ups, please.