Since 2015, the festival has made an annual donation to beyondblue, festival director Jesse Higgs said, but would this year make a switch to a charity “more local and grassroots”. 

“Then from 2016 and 2017 we donated $1 from every ticket sold to beyondblue, last year it was $6500,” Higgs said. “But we felt it was time to do something more grassroots and impactful within our local community.” 

This year, the festival hopes to donate $6500 that same way to Stigma No More, a Northern Tasmanian-based organisation. 

“Obviously beyondblue are a really excellent organisation and they have really good national awareness and I think that was a really good first port of call for us to show that we are serious about this issue,” Higgs said. 

“We had an excellent partnership and think the world of what they do around the nation.” 

Festival organisers Vibestown Productions chose to support Stigma No More because of its Tasmanian influences.  

“Stigma No More is a very tactful organisation and are volunteer based, basically every single cent that you give them goes to increasing mental health literacy within the community and initiatives to prevent suicide,” Higgs said.  

“They support local organisations and initiatives by providing funding for mental health education, this training is for people working in and around small regional towns in Northern Tasmania, so it’s very specific for our community. 

“For us that is the exact area that we want to be able to help … We’re going to see exactly where the money goes.”

The Vibestown crew will also undergo suicide prevention training facilitated by the organisation. 

“We’re going to do a course with them after the festival so we can be more helpful to our community,” Higgs said.  

There are less than 350 tickets left for the February 8-10 White Hills event.