A music festival designed to celebrate diversity through music certainly lived up to its name; with a broad range of musical acts from rock to hip-hop to electronica and dance. Held over three stages at the University of Canberra, and boasting an impressive line-up of national and local acts as well as the promise of ‘roving performers, art installations and stalls’ the festival seemed like it had the makings to be a success on its maiden run.

The bands did not disappoint, with funky crowd-energisers Casual Projects and Los Capitanes delivering their usual sweet beats and rhymes. For those inclined to groove the night away in front of a DJ deck- the bar’s chill-out lounge provided a raver’s glow-stick decorated heaven, with mixing angel Typhonic returning to his former home (Canberra) to treat electronica-inclined punters. A few other locals came along and threw their musical weight around – Alchemist and the always amazing Koolism , neither of whom disappointed. Highlight of the evening was 28 Days’ admission that they were past their prime- “ten years on and yeah, we probably should have quit a while back”. Gotta love a rock star that’s in touch with reality. Nontheless, the soon-to-retire rockers delivered a great set that canvassed their hits and new material from EP Bring it Back.

However, it wasn’t all gold stars for the virgin festival. The ‘breaking in’ perhaps could have been a little less painful with a little more advertising to bolster crowd numbers. While the acts were great and the line-up a real coup for a first-time festival, the crowd numbers were nothing to write home about and the atmosphere was well, dull. There were almost as many people in the beer garden as there were in the refectory listening to the headline acts. (Although perhaps this says less about the festival per se and more about the crowd?) The set list was posted around the venue, but by 10pm it was lagging 20 minutes behind, leaving a gaping hole in scheduling and nothing for punters to see except roadies setting up.

Another disappointment greeted fans at the gate – a notice advising that headline act The Valentinos were ‘unable to play a live set’ and instead members of the band would be performing a DJ set as side-project Knife Machine . While the set certainly wasn’t bad, it was like being given minute steak when you were offered scotch fillet – it still tastes good, it does the job, but it’s not as good as it could have been. Again, perhaps this was not organisers fault, but was still a dampener on the night. This anti-climax reaction indeed was the general response to the festival. It has a long way to go to really make its mark on the music scene, but giving credit where it is due Unidiversity showed a lot of promise, and hey, in Canberra we really can’t afford to not give it a go.