The National Gospel Happening Music & Arts Festival (The Happening) is a major indoor and outdoor festival of faith inspired music, dance and entertainment that appeals to all sections of society from youth to the aged. This festival is not focused on a specific denomination, it is truly a people's event.
With multi-venues, the festival includes celebrity concerts and hosts the annual Australian Gospel Music Awards.
In addition this festival sees a gathering of international and top line Australian performers mixed with regional gospel choirs and school groups. The event includes significant popular, southern, country, urban and traditional gospel performers as well as less well known but awesome talent.
Apart from promoting all genres of Gospel music and arts, the festival is also a significant fund raiser for community volunteer based charities.
This event was devised from a series of meetings of ordinary working people in Canberra. At first the drive was to gain funding for the many volunteer charities that do so much with so little in our own communities, so a theatrical play and other fundraisers were considered, but they really would have limited broad appeal and influence.
They took a 'big picture' approach and determined that a gospel festival would both attract and enthuse people across the community and beyond - thus the National Gospel Happening Music & Arts Festival was born and has grown ever since.
No church controls NGH in any way. The National Gospel Happening is a registered non-profit charity owned by the membership of the Australian Gospel Music Association which is open to anyone. No money changes hands or public endorsements of any denomination philosophy is allowed at the NGH festival. Likewise, there are no church services at the festival - that is the role of the churches themselves.
Most Christian denominations do lend their support to the festival by way of venues, volunteers, performers, etc. In some instances, NGH acts as bridging network between the different church denominations as it provides neutral common ground.
