Brand Tasmania Newsletter, March, 2010, Issue 103

Visitors to Hobart’s world-famous wooden boat festival will enjoy free entry in 2011 and be able to wander a site freed from a dominating, cyclone wire perimeter fence. The event will expand across Sullivans Cove and is expected to attract more than 70,000 people, as well as tall ships never seen before in Tasmanian waters.

Announcing that Government funding would be more than doubled to $650,000, the Premier, David Bartlett, said: “This funding will transform the Australian Wooden Boat Festival from one of the best in the world to the best in the world … you will get to see a larger festival and for free, with no ugly perimeter fence.”

The increased allocation means the $20 entry fee can be axed and businesses like Mure’s Fish Centre, located inside the perimeter, will not again face a situation where their customers are obliged to talk their way past gate-keepers. Nor will the festival organisers lose revenue as visitors claiming to be Mure’s customers cheat their way into the precinct. The festival’s estimated loss in gate takings in 2007 was $80,000.

Festival Chairman, Steve Knight, described the increased funding as an “enormous vote of confidence in the festival.” He said the festival site would almost double in size, extending the length of Sullivans Cove to include the revamped Princes Wharf No. 1 and Macquarie No. 1 sheds. “We had 540 vessels at the last festival and we had to turn about 100 away because we did not have room,” Mr Knight said. “We will have room for them now.”

It is hoped that tall ships from Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand and elsewhere will include two vessels that have not previously visited Tasmania.

The festival was first held over three days in 1994 and has grown to attract 50,000 people, 40 per cent of them from interstate or overseas. Surveys show that 90 per cent of non-Tasmanian attendees have come to the State especially for the event.

“The authenticity of Tasmania’s maritime and wooden boat culture provides us with a competitive advantage,” Mr Bartlett said. “I am sure the expansion of this festival will further strengthen our tourism branding and enhance Tasmania’s reputation on the international festival calendar.”

The next festival will run for five days from February 11-14, 2011.

For further information: www.australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au