It’s often said that events bring out the best in a destination.
They provide a big boost to the local economy and are a great way to introduce new people to the Sunshine Coast. Each event attendee is a potential repeat visitor so it’s easy to see how valuable an event like the Noosa Triathlon is with its 22,000 participants.
These events are not only for visitors. Us locals can also easily get involved, and I expect lots of local youngsters to join Superkidz Triathlon (part of the Noosa Tri). Hey, with some luck we could unearth the next big-name athlete right here on the Sunny Coast!
But the events industry in Australia has been doing it tough this last year, with lots of events pulling the pin due to the double whack of increased operational costs and the cost of living crisis impacting ticket sales.
That’s why it’s so fantastic to see everyone’s favourite, the Big Pineapple Festival, buck that trend and return in 2024. For all those music lovers it means we don’t need to travel to Brisbane, or further afield, for our festival fix.
The Big Pineapple Festival is also expected to bring in thousands and thousands of visitors and inject $4.95million to the local economy. Like the Noosa Tri, some of these will be first time visitors to the region and what a way to show them what we are all about and convince them to come back later for another holiday.
Also this month we have the Blackall 100, an endurance race for the purists, set on the magnificent Blackall Range trail in the hinterland. If running 100km isn’t for you (me neither) there is also the Milky Way Masterclass photographic sessions being held in Gympie and Maleny later this month.
And just to highlight that there is indeed an event for all tastes, a brilliant way of experiencing our status as Australia’s Craft Beer Capital is by jumping on board the Pop & Pour Festival. All you need to know is that it’s a hop-on-hop-off tour of our many breweries and distilleries. I’ll say cheers to that!
