Camp A Low Hum 2027 Festival Announced & The Winter Fund Launched - Interview

A Low Hum helmsman and catalytic force in Aotearoa independent music for more than two decades, Ian Jorgensen has announced the 2027 return of his wildly popular Camp A Low Hum festival — but there's a specific condition involved to make it all happen. Opening advance sales this April, nearly two years ahead of the actual event, the multi-day festival will only go ahead if 75% or more tickets are sold "by 8.30pm, April 28th".

A multi-zone festival famed for not revealing who's performing until attendees actually arrive, traditionally boasting a sonically uncompromising bill of high quality underground acts alongside superstar talents both local and international, last year's return of CALH was name-checked by multiple contributors in our 2024 Favourite Music Moments. Like last year, the 2027 festival is slated to take place over two weekends in mid to late February at Camp Wainui, Wainuiomata, including an in-between 'Infest', with plenty of advance FAQ info now available over at the A Low Hum site. Look forward also to the expected side-shows and nationwide tours by visiting acts. Quite often you can get clues as to who's playing if you pay close attention to our news section around that time.

Ian Jorgensen has also announced the official launch of The Winter Fund, a DIY project funding grant initially aimed at helping "people who want to build their own festival / event series from scratch", open from today onwards. You can learn all about the fund and apply over on the official site HERE. We needed to know more about the raison d'être behind today's big announcements — Jorgensen answered our nosey questions below...

Camp A Low Hum 2027
Camp Wainui, Wainuiomata

Weekend 1
Friday 19th February to Sunday 21st February

Infest
Monday 22nd February to Thursday 25th February

Weekend 2
Friday 26th February to Sunday 28th February

Tickets go on sale 8.30pm, Wednesday 23rd April (NZT) via www.alowhum.com
"If I haven’t sold 75%+ of the tickets by 8.30pm, April 28th, 2025 (NZT) the event will not go ahead".

Chris Cudby: Kia ora Ian! Today's announcements prompt many questions, thanks so much for squeezing in the time. First up, can you please outline exactly what is happening with the future of Camp A Low Hum? You've announced there will be a 2027 festival, but only if it sells out during a limited ticket sales 'window' — opening later this year?

Ian Jorgensen: Haha, you pretty much summed it up. Tickets will go on sale in one month's time, if I don't sell 75% or more of the capacity in five days of it going on sale, it won't go ahead. This means that people don't need to organise their travel plans / logistics until they know it's on for sure. If I don't sell enough tickets in those few days, there is no future for Camp A Low Hum — lol, that sounds so dark.

Are there any other festivals you know of who already do this eg. aim to sell out the festival completely before the acts are even announced?

Well, Camp won't ever announce acts, even if / when it sells out. I'm not sure if there are many current events that also do this. Camp Doogs which (ruled) operated for a bunch of years in Western Australia and was inspired by the founder of that coming to Camp in 2012, also didn't announce acts until day one of the event, but other than Fyre Festival 2, who haha, won't be announcing acts because they don't have any booked, I'm not sure of any other modern events doing so? Happy to be wrong about that though — I think not announcing artists should be the default, Fyre Festival got something right. There are some events that sell out before the acts are announced, because the events are so ingrained into people's lives and they sell out as soon as tickets go on sale, but they will always end up announcing acts at some stage before the event.

Big question: What factors fed into this new model — both from your own experiences with CALH, and Australasia's wider music festival context (which has been fraught with cancellations recently)?

When I started sketching out doing another Camp, part of that was working out all the events in Australia, festivals I'd always wanted to go to, which I would use as anchors for my trips to go over and see a shit ton of bands while curating it. As I started looking further into it, I realised, fuck, they're all gone. Even this past weekend, Meadow Festival, which has been around for ten years and looks like a really beautiful time, they held their final ever event — citing ticket sales and rising production costs.

Most production costs have generally increased at a rate far greater than inflation the past decade, running a small festival is brutal. The margins are tiny, and if you're a stubborn jerk like most of us who do them, then you don't want to bow to corporate sponsorship, booze sales or sell more tickets than is comfortable. If people want experiences like this, they need to meet the promoters half way. When a promoter has to spend time, energy and money on trying to get ticket sales, it means more time away from actually creating an experience. If people want events to be sick, they need to buy tickets fast, so as to give promoters confidence to be able to run their events without spending 6 months anxious about ticket sales and having to scale back the event to meet reduced ticket expectations.

I'm not using this model for myself — I'm pretty confident Camp tickets will sell quickly, but I want to normalise this approach to events and I would like to see this method used more often — and this seemed the perfect time to try it. Peeps need to understand that running an event is a huge tax on mental health, a huge strain on relationships and often has the shadow of a massive impending debt. But promoters also owe actually going ahead with an event. If they announce something as happening — they can't go and just cancel a few weeks out from the event. There is a lot of distrust out there from festival goers, and the best way to move ahead is for festivals to be transparent about what they need to actually happen, and to be able to refund customers before they spend money on flights, accom, rentals, etc.

So this new model would provide some agency for attendees — essentially the community decides if the festival is going to keep on happening — and security for the organiser / curator (and your team) and performing acts? Do you feel this model could be usable by other local festivals?

I've always talked about how Camp is a community festival and how it only exists because of the passionate involvement of so many incredible people. Now this has become literal in the sense the community will decide if it even happens or not, and being that any money made from Camp is directed right back into the community via The Winter Fund, this cyclical thing will (may) be beautiful to see.

The whole point of using this model is the hope that other events use a similar approach. There are many events that I am sure people out there are missing, and regretting not attending when they could. Using "Kickstarter" or some sort of crowdfunding model to launch a festival is by no means a radical idea, but I'm trying to take this model away from those platforms who clip the ticket and add a whole other level of baggage and issues.

There are plenty of festivals that don't need to use this method, and will forge on ahead regardless of their ticket sales, but it just seems outside of "early birds" or "staged ticket releases" where the prices increase the closer to the event, there really hasn't been much innovation in terms of events and how they encourage participants to commit early.

Does this mean you would start booking acts, only when 2027's festival is sold out? Would that involve another massive round of research?

I have a HUGE list already, including a tonne of acts who couldn't play in 2024.

I've been passively curating this whole time, and if Camp 2027 is confirmed to move ahead by the end of April this year, I'll be ramping that curation up. The bulk of my curation however will not be happening till late 2025 / early 2026 anyway. Part of Camp's appeal is the bulk of the acts who play are not on people's radar already, so I can't book too many acts too early. This is especially difficult for me when it comes to Australia as I am not only needing to find all the unheralded acts in NZ, but also find acts from Australia that the Australians coming haven't heard of.

To deep dive into subcultures and underground scenes in numerous cities in multiple countries, listening and watching 000's of bands is a massive undertaking and will take me 12-18 months, but being I fucking love watching live music and discovering new music, don't cry for me :)

Everyone was raving about the high quality of CALH 2024. As somebody who's been to all the versions of CALH, I personally loved how it did not at all feel like a nostalgia trip, platforming excellent yet under-heard emerging acts alongside the likes of Marlon Williams and Jujulipps. Was there anything you learned from 2024's festival that you're keen to switch up for the next edition in 2027?

I made a rule of not having any more than ten (give or take) acts who had ever played at a Camp (2007-2014) play at 2024. I needed this so I wouldn't take the easy way out and just book buddies. This was super brutal though because I couldn't book a bunch of buddies! Sorry friends :(

Curating Camp is always tough in that respect, people have often taken me not inviting them as some sort of declaration of my thoughts on their music and it couldn't be further from the truth — there are a tonne of artists I love who I didn't invite. Camp is about environments and artists reacting to those spaces. I book the event by stage / time rather than simply who the best acts are. For example: I will know that I have a gap on the "forest" stage at 7pm on the 3rd day of the event, so I'll be looking for an act who will fulfil exactly those requirements to be able to make that moment work. I don't just book bands I like and pigeonhole them in wherever.

In 2024 I learnt to trust my instincts more and will expand on this in 2027. Leading up to that Camp I had massive panic attacks about the "square stage". It was a vision of a stage I'd had since 2012 but never had the guts to do the first time around, so I forced myself to do it in 2024, then second guessed myself the whole time. Bands playing in-the-round is par for the course at Camp in smaller spaces, but I'd never done it for the "largest" stage, and I'm not even sure any festival has ever done this for their largest stage at an outdoor festival (again, would love to know if so)?

Would the bands understand how to play inwards facing each other and still understand how to "perform"? Would bands feel weird about people staring at their butts? Would the audience not just all gather on one side? Would it sound better from one side? Would bands get bummed out having to play on it as it was so different? I had many sleepless nights freaking out about it, to the point that I started redesigning it and just making it a normal front facing stage, but I slapped myself out of it — until that first night of the first weekend I thought it was going to be a disaster. It wasn't. It fucken ruled. Way harder than I even imagined.

I think in 2027, people can expect to see some pretty radical concepts in the lighting and staging / presentation of performance. I feel kinda unleashed in a way?

Would CALH 2027 be split into two weeks like in 2024?

If it happens :) Yes. I could have looked at doing one weekend, but creatively, the stuff I'm cooking up requires two weekends and a large part of why I'm wanting another Camp to happen is to do the Infest in between the two weekends again where the bands get to hang out and bond. This was the primary reason I even came back to doing Camp in the first place — I wanted artists to build better relationships with each other, proper support networks, encourage collaboration and also just put a bunch of artists in a space where they can relax for a few days and just think about music and art and not be distracted by everyday life and concerns.

Would the Infest initiative return for CALH 2027?

Lol. Jinx. Yeah, I was actually going to do one in Australia this year and went over there visiting sites, having meetings, but as I got close too announcing it I realised that it would only really provide an awesome outcome for 30 or so different acts, and likely a good many of those who have been to the last Infest... so I tore all my ideas down and tried to restructure something which would aim to be bigger than itself, and help any artist, anywhere.

My new take on Infest this time is that rather than Infest solely be about bands, is that I continue the "un-conference" style for the bands of the last Infest, where they organise what they want to do themselves and just spend 4 days hanging out. But instead I'll focus the directed part of Infest to be about bringing together the most active members of the DIY community of Australasia to spend four days hanging with each other, coming up with projects, hatching plans and also working on an epic document sharing all their combined knowledge for the entire community. So any artist / musician can tap into it.

As well as The Winter Fund funding this process and the space, it will also fund the free publication of that document.

Though yeah, all that only happens if Camp goes ahead of course :)

Part two of today's announcement involves the official launch of The Winter Fund, open from today onwards. What are the aims of the Winter Fund and who is the Winter Fund aimed at supporting?

The Winter Fund is trying to fill a gap in the NZ funding landscape.

Most government funding come from either two systems:

One — Let's throw a tonne of money at people who we are not certain if they are capable or not, but maybe they are, and let's pay them more than they need to make content or do something which might go nowhere. Though as long as 5% of the money we throw out goes somewhere, then all is good, and we can ignore the other 95% of wasted monies that led to nothing.

Two — Let's make people jump through as many hoops as possible, require over-the-top amounts of documentation, force them into arbitrary deadlines which might be at total odds with their projects, squeeze them into a hole they might not fit, and put them through the wringer and put massive expectations on both reporting and delivery. Let's make a process which is at odds to the way that most creative artists think and instead gear it towards people with analytical / strategic minds instead.

Asking the government for funding sucks, not as much as asking parents for money, but it's close. The Winter Fund was established because the government doesn't know how to seek out talent and hates creating infrastructure or slow burns. It just waits on people to come to them and requires immediate tangible / reportable outcomes.

After a painful re-reading of an essay I wrote recommending a restructuring to government funding, where in that essay I single out Reuben Winter and KCB as a suggestion of the type of group that should receive funding — because it's a group where the success of any one of them leads to the success of all — well after Reuben's passing, I got pretty distressed at how difficult it was for people within these communities to reach out for financial help.

As well as passively sitting back and waiting for applications to come in, I'll be actively approaching people who I see doing cool shit, and asking them if a few extra bucks could help with anything.

The Winter Fund believes that people with ideas just need little bits of money and lots can be done with it. Creatives who are likely living paycheck to paycheck but who have a cool idea and maybe they just need a grand for it, and that amount of money could get something off the ground that could lead to so much more. Maybe they have an idea, but they don't have in-depth cost analysis and budgeting and business plans. Maybe they just want to start a music zine or get started screen-printing t-shirts for local bands, whatever it is, if its music related and can help others in your community then eventually Winter Fund might be able to help.

Initially as The Winter Fund only has a wee amount of money, the first funding we're looking at doing is specifically for people who want to build their own festival/event series from scratch.

I'll be doing further events in 2025, 2026, haha, and hopefully 2027 which will ideally grow the funds The Winter Fund has and expand what we can fund, ideally it will just be "ideas" with no specificity.

Lots of beautiful people donated directly following Camp, including some who sent me cash in envelopes! Brought a tear to my eye :)

How can people apply?

For this first avenue of funding, only takes a few minutes. http://alowhum.com/winterfund I'll hopefully roll out other types of funding more in line with the goals of The Winter Fund over the next couple of years, depending on how much money I lose on upcoming projects :)

How do you imagine each grant might be spent?

For these first grants, it is just $1000 to go towards putting on a multi-act show. I only want people who are trying to build a new festival for the first time. People who maybe have put on a couple of shows, they've noticed that there is a community of acts around them who are crying out to gather together in some way. That money would likely just be enough to hire a hall / venue, maybe pop in a basic PA and an engineer. All you really need to get going. At that level and for a first community event, ideally all the bands would just be splitting the ticket sales, and with the event already subsidised a little, there is more to go around. There are no expectations for these events, maybe the only people who come are the bands and their partners, maybe 100 people show up, 200? It doesn't matter, it's about getting something started. If you successfully pull off that first event (and if Camp 2027 goes ahead), we'll likely front you a larger sum of money for your second mini-festival :) The Winter Fund is about slow growth. Building community through project after project, and offering bits of money here and there so you don't gotta ask your parents :)

Where does the money come from with The Winter Fund and who manages it?

I have a proper adult job now, one I love, so A Low Hum doesn't need to subsidise any of my life, and I already have everything I need, so every cent A Low Hum earns from the last Camp onwards is going into this fund. The costs of Infest 2024 were built into the running of Camp, so even though no additional funds were made from the event, Infest was funded which was the initial goal of The Winter Fund.

Following Camp heaps of amazing people bought left-over merch and I got some direct donations, enough that I can kick off this first phase of the fund.

I'll be doing quite a few projects over the next few years, hopefully some of them can add a few more bucks to the fund.

Currently I'm managing it, and i think I'll need to do that for at least the short term.

Why do grant recipients not need to credit The Winter Fund on their posters / flyers?

They're the ones doing our scene / community a favour. I am the one thanking them for making shit happen. No need to thank The Winter Fund.

People should feel total ownership of their ideas and vision. The work and effort the individuals put into their projects far outweigh any amount of money they'll receive from The Winter Fund.

I'm really precious about the artwork for events I do and the Camp A Low Hum posters especially. Popping logos on messes up the art.

Last up, I know you've got many projects on the boil, even outside of your work as Operations Manager for Synthstrom Audible. Anything else you're excited about for the year ahead, that you can talk about yet?

I'll be off overseas doing a few events for Synthstrom Audible later in 2025, not for anything new, just to catch up with our community and hopefully taking the chance to catch a few festivals overseas to check out bands in consideration for a certain festival, if it goes ahead :)