Final curtain on Foma fun

The writing was on the wall when Dark Mofo announced last September that this year’s winter extravaganza was mostly going into hibernation. So yesterday’s media release confirming Mona owner and founder David Walsh was pulling the pin on Mona’s summer Foma festival probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

“Mona Foma took us around the world,” Walsh said in his statement. “But it ends here. Maybe the end started at Covid.

“Maybe it’s because the last festival was a poorly attended artistic triumph. But those aren’t the reasons I killed it.”

Walsh, who has invested many millions into Foma over 16 years, not to mention the huge costs in staging Dark Fomo, pointed to his other financial commitments in expanding Mona.

“At Mona, I’m building this big thing, hopefully it’ll be a good thing, but it’s a costly thing. I’m addicted to building, and my addiction got out of hand,” he wrote in the announcement.

“Some things have to go before I’m too far gone.”

Foma has trained the spotlight on so many incredible acts over the journey, including Dresden Dolls, David Byrne and The Saints, as just a few that Walsh fondly recalled.

This party, which this year featured Queens of the Stone Age, Paul Kelly, Tism and many others, might be over folks, but no one begrudges Walsh or his team for pulling the curtain after all this time.

And knowing his drive to continue pushing the creating envelope, Tasmania and the world should not be surprised if the Mona founder comes up with something bigger, brighter, stranger to fill the void somewhere down the track.

“It’s been magical, but the spell has worn off,” he wrote.

“Only these words, from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, remain: ‘Live by the Foma that makes you brave and kind and healthy and happy’.”