February 14th, 2025ChillOut president Matt & all things rainbow

ChillOut president Matt Clarke was born and raised in regional Victoria in the small town of Wycheproof.

The youngest of six kids, life was all about “heavy” farming, agriculture and local sport. “And then you finish school and move away and come up with whatever you’re going to do for the rest of your life,” he said. 

“I was a bit lost when I left school, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I could have been a lot of things. I wanted to be a vet, I wanted to be a paramedic. I wanted to be a heap of things. But I had a really underlying passion for horses and the equines.” 

Not into doing things by halves, Matt headed to a big harness racing stable in Great Western, Victoria and spent the next 15 years there, on and off, training horses and competing all over Australia and New Zealand. 

It was a hard life, but one he loved, with the only downside the region and industry not offering the chance to open up as “a proud gay person, or lesbian or trans”. 

“That just wasn’t something that would happen. I mean, I was never scared to come out and I had to my family, it was just the environment you were in. It was a challenging space. But, you know, if people believed or had an idea that I may have been gay, that’s fine, and if someone was to ever ask me, I would have talked about it.

“But in such a small community people just had their own views and mindsets, and that is just how it was.” 

After a while Matt, doing that full-on thing again, moved to Ballarat for “the love of my life – but that didn’t work out”. 

He puts the end of the relationship down to a few things including having his mum pass away from a quick and sad death from melanoma. 

“That was really challenging. I was extremely close to my mum. So I guess that played on a lot of the emotions and the challenges of a relationship.” 

Matt said he remained in Ballarat but was lonely and without a tribe. 

“I’d been to ChillOut a number of times, viewed the parade, been to Carnival Day and just immersed myself in that from a distance. And then there was a call-out for a meet and greet for potential committee members. 

“It was a workshop day where you were asked to talk about yourself, like is there something that is going to let us know a little bit about yourself. I got up and I explained to the group about two tattoos that I had put there after my mum had died.

“One thing she always said to me was that she didn’t want me to have a challenging and difficult life as a gay person and before she died she told me to be strong and she told me to be happy. 

“The first tattoo on my left arm is a symbol of strength. And then the second tattoo on my right arm is a symbol of happiness. I look at them every day and they remind me of those powerful words. I shared that story to a group of strangers and just burst into tears.” 

Matt learned more about ChillOut and its history and “a little bit of a fire was lit”. Next thing he was on the committee and then the president. 

“It’s been great. A really satisfying journey on a personal level of growth and development and connection.

“It’s also seeing the festival continue to evolve, also in terms of engagement from community stakeholders and sponsors.

“We’re up to our 28th consecutive festival and rolling into our 30th anniversary, which is really exciting.” 

Matt joined the committee in the first year of Covid. A challenging space, he says.

“We all had to learn about Skype and Teams and FaceTime calls and how do we communicate. And then the ever-evolving process of, are we allowed to be together? What do the spaces look like? 

“The festival did go ahead in a live space, down at the amphitheatre at Hepburn Springs with big circles drawn on the grass and people having to sit within their circle. They essentially had to be self-contained.

“And the flagship event of the weekend, the parade, took a whole new turn. It was done virtually and we asked our supporters to record a clip of themselves in full gear or costume and we blended them into a streamed parade. And we took that as a tick, it was a festival.” 

Matt said this year’s ChillOut would offer many of the loved activities like the Bush Dance, the Grand Parade, Carnival Day, the Youth Muster and the Friday night opening which will be held in the Big Top at Victoria Park instead of the currently under renovation Town Hall. 

The theme for the weekend is Circus, which gives people plenty of scope for fun outfits which relive the fun times of country carnivals and circuses. 

Matt said his many skills from the equine industry and also in sales and management had given him a great skillset for ChillOut and he was loving the role.  

“One of the things that we love is seeing all of the businesses get involved in the festival. I mean, there are many queer-owned businesses in Daylesford and those that aren’t are just as welcoming to a queer community in regional Victoria.

“When the committee members go down and line the streets with our bunting, many of the businesses ask if they can get more – because they love the festival.”