Field days sites sold out

Unprecedented interest in Mareeba event

NORTH Queensland’s largest field days event is off to a cracking start, with exhibitor sites selling out in record time.

Held every two years, Rotary FNQ Field Days organisers are expecting more than 18,000 people through the gates at the Mareeba Rodeo Grounds from May 29-31.

Organising committee chairwoman Ida Portella said the event had already attracted strong interest, with all sites now sold. “We had 600 sites for sale this year, about 50 more than 2017,” she said.

“We also launched some new fully powered sites.

“We launched everything about the second week of October and it just slammed us, we basically sold 80 per cent of the sites within two weeks.

“A lot of the powered sites went straight away.

“We always have really good response but this year it was revved up to another notch.”

Due to the success of the three-day format in 2017, which was a first in the event’s long history, Ms Portella said the committee decided to again run the event from Wednesday through to Friday.

“We ran it over three days again this year because we had people saying that two days just weren’t enough,” she said.

“We wanted to have a lot of activities happening so people can come back the next day and see something else.”

Ms Portella said the committee had also been busy working on bringing a range of new attractions at this year’s field days.

“There is no agriculture field days of our size north of Toowoomba,” she said.

“We’ve got exhibitors coming from all over Australia, we have some international exhibitors too, but not many.

“We’ve also been planning to implement different ways of changing what people coming to the event can see.”

New attractions this year include an Ag Art Wear competition, Colt Start horse handling demonstrations, a revamped Future Innovations juniors’ competition and a Farmers Dinner, with sports personality and men’s health advocate Shane Webcke.

This year’s event will also feature the return of crowd favourites, including the Tractor Pull, ATV/Quad Bike safety and four-wheel-drive vehicle demonstrations, Health and Wellbeing Pavilion, Drone Ag demo, Venomous Snake Pit run by Rescue Swag and the Innovation Pavilion.