As the Alice Springs Beanie Festival celebrates its 30th and final year, we’re taking a look at the weird and wonderful handmade creations — and the characters working hard behind the scenes — that have made the annual event so special.
Every year, on a mid-winter weekend in June, crowds of people in Central Australia queue up to attend the region’s warmest and fuzziest event.
The annual Alice Springs Beanie Festival features handmade headwear of every colour, texture, shape and size — and it’s not all your average knits on display.
Over the past three decades, there have been beanies made from dog hair, emu feathers, sticks and bottle caps.
“It’s quirky, it’s out there, it’s very Alice Springs,”
chief beanieologist Jo Nixon said.
A key force behind the colourful event for decades, Ms Nixon said this year’s festival — themed ‘Beanies of Gratitude’ — would be its final iteration.
She said many elderly volunteers could no longer work the hours necessary to run the event, explaining “beanie burnout is a real thing”.
“At the end of the festival, I am dead on my feet,” Ms Nixon said.
“I’m going to miss it lots, actually, but I’m not sad about it, I feel good about it.
“It’s time to finish on a really big high and thank everyone in Alice Springs and around the world for supporting us and making it such a great event.”
Record numbers for festival’s final year
For the final festival, more than 150 volunteers have attached 7,800 beanies — a new record — to every inch of wall, and lovingly stacked tables with foot-high piles of fluffy headwear, in preparation for the 6,000 visitors expected to attend this weekend.
Every beanie has been artistically crafted by makers from around Australia and the world.
The most elaborate crocheted, knitted and felted works of art are exhibited, with their creators vying to take home various prizes, including the people’s choice award.
Ninety-one-year-old Lyn Suich has been part of the festival since 1997 and has knitted about 1,500 beanies in that time.
The Alice Springs local, who has painful arthritis, said knitting the beanies made her life worthwhile.
“It truly does, because I love being creative,”
she said.
“It’s such a shame that the festival has to end.”
Looking back on beanies
The festival was started by Ms Nixon’s aunty, Adi Dunlop, back in 1996.
Annie Farthing, who coordinates the food and cake sales, jumped on-board in the event’s second year.
“[Adi] always talked about a beanie-driven economic recovery,” she said.
“But at its heart, it was about including people — women and men, but particularly women.”
Ms Farthing said in the the festival’s early days, women would teach yarn spinning and Indigenous groups would cook kangaroo tail and damper in a fire, celebrating some of the things “women do a million times over their lifetime”.
“Suddenly there’s a place that says, ‘This is so valuable and so fun and so creative and so artistic’,” she said.
“Alice Springs is the most amazing, vibrant, creative, wonderful, joyous place to be.“
Ms Farthing and Ms Nixon said they were confident something would come along to fill the gap left by the annual event.
“The stories about the beanie festival will continue on forever,” Ms Nixon said.
The final Alice Springs Beanie Festival will run from June 19 to 22 at the Araluen Art Centre.
