Toowoomba Meatstock: Toowoomba Regional Council votes to sponsor $3.3m marquee event again after successful 2022 festival

It’s being described as Toowoomba’s newest premier festival and the numbers from its inaugural event speak for itself. Now the council has again thrown financial support behind Meatstock.

Meatstock Toowoomba attracted an incredible 10,000 people from outside the region and pumped $3.3m in the local economy in its inaugural event last year.

The pulling power of the city’s newest marquee festival has been laid bare at a recent Toowoomba Regional Council meeting, with councillors agreeing to again sponsor the local leg of the massive meat and barbecuing event to ensure it didn’t leave the Garden City.

Toowoomba will be the only non-capital city hosting the festival this year, with our region acting as the second leg of the tour on April 14-15.

The festival features a number of country acts along with a slew of barbecuing vendors from across Australia.

The council voted at last week’s session to sponsor this year’s edition for $15,000, after providing $50,000 to organiser Fat Apple Events in 2022.

Meatstock Festival, Toowoomba showgrounds. April 2022

This is lower than the $30,000 that was originally requested for 2023.

Planning and development general manager Dr Nikola Stepanov also revealed nearly 16,000 people stayed overnight in Toowoomba, which included camping at the showgrounds and staying in hotel rooms.

She said continued sponsorship, reducing in line with council’s policies for major events, would ensure the festival remained in Toowoomba.

“It would be heavily contested by other councils to have Meatstock held in their region instead of ours,” she told councillors at Tuesday’s meeting.

Councillors Melissa Taylor endorsed the follow-up sponsorship, saying Meatstock was “putting Toowoomba on the map” in the same vein as the famous Carnival of Flowers.

“It’s the nights of accommodation and the produce they bring, it’s the taxi drivers, restaurants,” she said.

“It’s not really just local vendors that will be affected, it’s the wider community and it’s putting Toowoomba on the map for something that isn’t just Carnival of Flowers.”

While the original motion would see the event sponsored for this year and 2024, councillors restricted support for this year and plan to continue negotiations.

It also expressed a desire to see more local vendors featured in the festival.

Originally published as Toowoomba Meatstock: Toowoomba Regional Council votes to sponsor $3.3m marquee event again after successful 2022 festival