Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers: Concerns raised over replacement of Festival of Food and Wine with FEASTival

Residents and businesses have given a mixed response to the announcement of the event that will replace the Festival of Food and Wine — and there’s real concerns over the loss of a key demographic.

Toowoomba businesses and tourism operators are open to sweeping changes to a drawcard at the Carnival of Flowers, but urged the council to show a clear strategy on how it planned to keep key demographics from ignoring the marquee event.

The popular Festival of Food and Wine will become FEASTival this year, in one of several alterations to the 2025 program for the city’s marquee tourism attraction across September and October announced by organisers last week.

Kim McGregor with his daughters Eleanor (top) and Neave McGregor at the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers Festival of Food and Wine, Saturday, September 14, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

The Queens Park-based event, which had been proven to be popular with young people without children in previous years, will now focus on family attractions as well as food sourced and produced on the Darling Downs.

Crucially, the emphasis on big-name music acts will be cut in favour of more affordable and local artists.

The public has responded negatively to the changes online, with some calling the pitch of FEASTival “extremely disappointing”.

“I’m so disappointed by this decision, it was an absolute highlight of the year,” one resident wrote on social media.

During a recent CBD stakeholders meeting, it is understood organisers highlighted the cost of larger acts by citing the $250,000 price tag attached to getting Vance Joy to play.

It is believed the increasing cost of security to manage such a booze-heavy event in a public park had also been a major inhibiting factor.

Burke and Wills Hotel general manager Donnalea Ballard, whose venue relies heavily on the festival weekend as part of its calendar of business, said she was prepared to wait until the line-up was announced in July before deciding whether the move was the right one.

Burke and Wills Hotel manager Donnalea Ballard. Picture from 2013. Photo Contributed

“It’s going to be a ‘suck it and see’ situation — I went to the meeting they held a few weeks ago, the stakeholders had a meeting about the proposed changes,” she said.

“I can understand why they’ve gone in that direction, I think they could’ve explored other opportunities but I’m happy to see where this takes us.”

Ms Ballard said the focus on families looking for a budget weekend away could be highly lucrative, but believed it could also backfire.

“They’re looking to reduce the cost to introduce a more family-friendly environment — that could go one of two ways, it could attract out-of-towners but it could also attract locals who don’t need rooms,” she said.

“Those weekends are our gravy and if it’s family-priced ticketing, whether that means they’ll have a bit more to spend or whether it will attract more locals is unclear.

“I don’t know whether that will leave us better or worse off — you can make assumptions, but you don’t know.”

Peter Homan, CEO Southern Queensland Country Tourism

Queensland Country Tourism chief executive Peter Homan said he was ready to embrace FEASTival, but hoped both organisers and tourism operators could collaborate to ensure key markets were not lost — particularly under-35s without children.

“I know there’s going to be a need for the public to get used to the fact that particularly the Food and Wine aspect of the event has changed considerably,” he said.

“If it’s done properly I think we can mitigate that area, particularly for the under-35 market and maybe we can get them back into the pubs and restaurants back in town.

“It’s a really big change away from what has been the traditional Food and Wine event over many years and the one that we’ve come to love and adore.

“We don’t want to lose those people a little bit, because they’re high-yielding and they certainly bring a lot of atmosphere and energy into the town.”

Toowoomba Chamber chief executive Todd Rohl agreed, noting some members had been left wondering how much of the entire program catered to younger people.