First Festival A Huge Success – by Eve Reitmajer
(Extracted from the Bowen Independent – Wednesday 30th May 2007)
“Everyone was a winner – but the biggest winner was Bowen as last Saturday’s inaugural Bowen Seafood Festival at Hansen Park was declared a raging success.
Designed to showcase Bowen and profile its local produce and businesses, the event was a huge hit, with everything going smoothly. Hansen Park provided the perfect setting, and not even a brief downpour – or “tropical shower” – for a few minutes dampened the festival spirit.
The free event was a joint effort by the Queensland Seafood Industry Association, Tourism Bowen and the Bowen Shire Council. It included food stalls, entertainment, kite surfing, camel rides, children’s amusements and information stalls.
While the filming schedule of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia kept the big-name stars away, the movie’s unit publicity officer Edweana Wenkart and Academy Award-winning designer Catherine Martin made a brief appearance. Ms Wenkart got up on stage to say thank you to Bowen and announce the festival door prize from Bazmark Film II Pty. Ltd. – an exclusive tour of the set and photo opportunity with Baz Luhrmann, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The prize was won by Dianne Dalton, of Bowen.
While the official start for the Bowen Seafood Festival was 11:00am, many community members were checking out all that was on offer over an hour earlier. By 11:00am the crowd was estimated about 1000 and all up, between 4500 and 5000 were thought to have attended. The crowd quickly dispersed at 7pm at the festival’s closing.
The festival was an outstanding community success, with organisers extending their thanks to the entire community and those that participated – the event was one that Bowen can be proud of. Event organiser Cr. Greg Smith extended his special and sincere thanks to the public, stall holders and volunteers, and those who delivered information related to the seafood industry, sending many thanks and appreciation to all those wonderful community minded people who helped made the seafood festival a special and highly successful day.
The festival was well attended, with visitors coming from as far as Mackay, Townsville, Ayr and Airlie Beach – many making the trip to Bowen specifically to attend the festival.”
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