Ballarat venues will host a 12-hour program of live music and shows on the eve of the Spilt Milk Festival in November.
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Dubbed Fringe Benefits, it aims to attract musicians, performers and performance artists at venues across the city on the Friday before the festival takes place in Victoria Park.
Tara Poole, who coordinates the council's new creative city strategy, said she hoped the idea will appeal to both festival-goers and Ballarat residents alike.
The idea has the backing of Spilt Milk organisers, Ms Poole said, and marketing options will be explored for promoting the Friday events once venues and artists were confirmed.
She said that Ballarat was the first to suggest the idea: there was no equivalent program planned for Canberra, where the festival will also take place on the preceding weekend.
Around 24,000 festival-goers are expected in Ballarat for the event, which runs from 11am to 11pm on November 30 and includes artists such as Khalid, CHVRCHES and Juice Wrld.
The City of Ballarat CEO Justine Linley said she hoped the Fringe Benefits performances would help ensure accommodation in the city is fully booked for the weekend of the festival.
According to booking.com, there is currently no hotel availability in Ballarat on the night of November 30 with a wide range available on Friday night.
The same is true of AirBnB, with accommodation booked out on the Saturday night and plenty of places left on the Friday.
On Trivago, there are a handful of places left, with the Best Western on advertising a room for $656 for one night.
Ms Poole is calling for musicians, performers and performing artists to register their interest in taking part in the Fringe Benefits programs by the end of August.
"Now that we have the creative cities approach, the intention is to hook in to what's going on and to pull it into the heart of town and activate our local musicians and our artists," Ms Poole told The Courier.
With official Spilt Milk pre-parties taking place in the centre, she said it gave a good opportunity to organise extra events.
Jodie Gillett CEO of Commerce Ballarat said: "We want this to go out and have people thinking, 'Wow, we'll stay for three nights, we'll do a recovery on the Sunday'."
Ms Gillett said she would like to see even more businesses, particularly retail, to explore how they could use the opportunity of so many visitors to the city.
Venues can register their interest at creativeballarat.com.au/fringe-benefits, part of the just launched website designed to promote the new creative city strategy.
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