Food fight: opposing festivals to press ahead

AN ever-resilient Jim Berardo has announced the Noosa International Food and Wine Festival will go ahead, despite Tourism Events Queensland rejecting his proposal.
In a statement to the media, Mr Berardo confirmed the event will be staged next year from 19 to 22 May, even though TEQ have declined to fund the event.
Mr Berardo said the funding from TEQ and Tourism Noosa made up 10 per cent of the total funding required to host the event, but he remained confident private sponsorship and ticket sales would continue as planned.
“With the backing of private sponsors and ticket sales revenue we can move on to create a powerful event, and without the support of the government tourism bodies, this means we can move quickly and more efficiently without the bureaucracy required when dealing with government partners, which is a huge saving in both time and lost revenue due to complimentary tickets requested as part of their sponsorship requirements,” Mr Berardo said.
Mr Berardo said negotiations were ongoing with key sponsors to re-affirm their commitment to the event and new private partnerships with national companies that have indicated their interest in the festival could be possible.
Following the decision of the TEQ board of directors, Mr Berardo said he was disappointed to receive the news that the tourism body has decided not to fund his event despite its consistently proven economic benefit to Queensland and the Sunshine Coast over the past 12 years.
“The 2015 event delivered a direct economic impact of $6 million, $12 million in international and national media coverage to Queensland, provided employment for 175 people, trained 155 community volunteers, trained 48 local TAFE and high school students, and involved hundreds of local and interstate businesses,” Mr Berardo said.
“The 2015 event attracted 35,000 attendees: four per cent international visitors, 27 per cent interstate visitors, 37 per cent intrastate (more than 40km from the event) and 32 per cent local visitors (within 40km of the event).”
Mr Berardo said in the 12 years since the event’s inception, it had not only put Noosa, the Sunshine Coast and Queensland on the national culinary map – highlighting the region’s produce, chefs and restaurants to the world – but had increased visitor nights to the region in what was the “deadly quiet” time of year.
“The NIFW has always been associated with its prestige branding supported by premium sponsors, not to mention an extensive following on social media and the ‘chilli member’ database. A great deal of time and resources were dedicated to the unique database of ‘chilli members’ from around Australia and the world who are loyal attendees each year,” he said.
“Anyone involved in running major events, particularly in regional areas will understand the complexities involved, we have our dates locked in on the international calendar of events, which is critical to hosting major events, something we’ve been doing for over a decade.
“I think we all remember when the Gympie Muster had difficulties, and also the Woodford Folk Festival site. They were lucky enough to have had the assistance of their local and State governments to help them in the tough times and they have turned it around today and are back where they used to be.
“Unfortunately for Noosa, new business owners of the Sheraton, the Noosa Pacific Hotel Group, decided to run a competing event on the exact same dates, which sets up an extremely challenging dynamic for Noosa. It is apparent that our long-term premium corporate sponsors and attendees from around Australia will be confused on where to spend their money which is incredibly divisive for the community.”
Mr Berardo said the groups should work together for the best possible outcome for Noosa, the Sunshine Coast and Queensland.
“It is a heartbreaking situation,” he said. “It is very difficult to understand the rationale of Tourism Noosa management and its board’s decision to allow this to occur, given that they knew that the NIFW owned the intellectual property and had agreed to pay the unpaid 2015 creditors over time which was dependant on the festival moving forward.”
Berardo confirmed that approximately 40 per cent of the outstanding creditor debt had been paid.