Popular food festival Taste Port Douglas cancelled for 2018

A MAJOR Port Douglas food festival, which attracted the likes of My Kitchen Rules judge and celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge, has been cancelled.

Celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge from Four Fourteen Restaurant has been a regular at Taste Port Douglas. Picture: John Appleyard

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A MAJOR Port Douglas food festival has been cancelled after the event was deemed financially unviable.

Taste Port Douglas, which has previously attracted the likes of celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge, was scheduled for September but organisers today announced the festival will not run in 2018.

Event director Reina Patrick said visitors’ expectations of the event exceeded what organisers would be able to deliver.

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“The delivery, planning and execution of this event demands up to 2000 voluntary hours from its two directors,” she said.

“We have invested into the event over the past five years but we are not seeing enough growth physically nor financially.

Taste Port Douglas.

“With the calibre of chef and media participants we bring up the visitor expectation of the event exceeds what we are able to deliver.

“We are deeply grateful for all the support our major partners and sponsors have given us

over the years but our five-year plan was for the event to be financially viable and it

isn’t so a hard decision has had to be made.”

Guest chefs Spencer Patrick and Massimo Mele cook at Taste Port Douglas in 2014.

Fassnidge, of My Kitchen Rules fame, praised the festival in 2017.

“You could be away at festivals every weekend if you wanted to, so you have to pick and choose,” he said ahead of last year’s event. “You could go to a lot of festivals but they aren’t as good,” he said.

The Taste Port Douglas announcement follows the cancellation of this year’s Palm Cove Reef Feast, after Tourism Palm Cove announced the popular event was “postponed until the year 2019”.

Originally published as Popular food festival Taste Port Douglas cancelled for 2018