ChillOut : a festival 'out' in the country

This chapter argues that ChillOut exemplifies the tensions between festivals as 'politics', 'celebration', 'enterprise' and 'fund-raising'. We have demonstrated how for some individuals ChillOut troubles assumptions of heterosexuality that continue to fashion rural Victoria, and yet for others operates to confirm normative assumption of heterosexuality. For those who embrace sexual diversity during ChillOut is central to defying homophobia and heterosexism in every life. ChillOut contributes fashioning Daylesford-Hepburn Springs as a 'gay capital' in heterosexual, lesbian and gay imaginaries. For lesbians and gay men living in regional Victoria, ChillOut provides an important opportunity to generate social networks and perform otherwise masked identities. Yet, even amongst those who embrace sexual diversity there is a sense that ChillOut is only 'buying acceptance' through its deployment within tourism promotion and capitalist relations. Such concerns are exemplified in ongoing experiences of homophobia in schools, the refusal to display the rainbow flag on the town hall and how outside of the festival time-space, publicly accepted expressions of lesbian and gay sexualities along Vincent Street are primarily fashioned through conspicuous consumption.