Relish Food & Wine Festival 2022
Blue skies, live music, food, wine and more. Crowds of thousands gathered on the Fraser Coast for the region’s most popular foodie festival on Saturday. See our photo gallery:
Fraser Coast
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An overcast morning on the Fraser Coast turned into beautiful blue skies at the Relish Food & Wine Festival on Saturday.
Crowds of thousands gathered at Maryborough’s Mary River Parklands and Queens Park, where festival-goers enjoyed a day out with friends and family sharing a glass of wine, or two, accompanied by delicious street food.
This year’s festival program included some new additions like a paint-and-sip hosted by Gin & Gesso at the Portside Courtyard, plus some sessions brought back by popular demand.
One of those was fine-dining restaurant Odyssey Bistro in Hervey Bay, with their ticketed cooking session ‘Odyssey Food & Cocktail Journey’ selling out within days.
Odyssey owner Scott Thompson told The Chronicle there was a “great turn out”.
He said he liked to get involved in the festival each year because he loved the community.
“We love what we do, we love the community that we live in and we want to be a part of it as much as possible so when there’s an event like this on, we’re 100% supportive, we just want to be invested in anyway we can...” he said.
From burgers and tacos, to wine and fresh strawberries, the festival hosted an array of food vendors showcasing the Fraser Coast’s fabulous cuisine, flavours and produce.
This year’s food vendors included The Vintage Bee Mobile Cafe, Lets Taco Bout it, Bunya Cheese, Farm Fresh Strawberries, Childers Fine Foods and Odyssey Bistro, just to name a few.
There were also 10 wineries from the Fraser Coast and South Burnett represented.
Speaking to The Chronicle while setting up at the festival on Friday, acting events manager for Fraser Coast Tourism & Events Chelsea Larner-Simpson said the event took two days to set up.
“This year we have made a couple of changes to the site, and we’ve now got the main stage happening up in Queens Park along with all the wineries,” she said.
“So going for a bit of a more grassy, green field, picnic-day-out-in-the-sun vibe.”
She said they were expecting a crowd of about 4000, with 2500 pre-sale tickets already sold.
Ms Larner-Simpson said the festival was a great day for the community.
“I know so many people really just love it... they enjoy being outside in blue skies and having a drink with their friends and just enjoying what the Fraser Coast has to offer,” she said.
Other events included cooking demonstrations in the Food Lovers Marquee from celebrity chef Matt Golinski, live music from Jon Vea Vea & The Acoustic Jabiru and a Champagne High Tea hosted by Portside Cafe and Restaurant.
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