A festival first for Far North

FAR North Queensland can bask in some well-earned State of Originstyle bragging on behalf of the rest of the state for beating Western Australia to a world-first COVID milestone.

The Savannah Summer Series will beat Busselton’s Good Day Sunshine to the punch as the first fully COVIDsafe music festival by almost a month — which is something we deserve to boast about.

It’s not even about making fun of Busselton — the Good Day Sunshine festival looks like it’s going to be spectacular, and Busselton probably has plenty of other strengths too.

Really, it goes to show that the Far North’s star is rising as a place for events and businesses to get away from the economic ravages of the pandemic.

Of course, we’ve had our share of struggles up here as well. Nobody is going to look back on 2020 fondly.

But, between the upcoming music festival, the AFL games and the

Super Netball, it just goes to show how valuable locking down on the spread of the pandemic has been for the region in the long run.

The question now is what can it lead to? The local art and music scene is slowly but surely returning to normal with more gigs happening around the Tanks and Munro Martin Parklands.

There’s no reason why other big events can’t start looking in our direction.

Savannah Summer Series organiser James Dein wants the impact of the event to be noticed in the country music heartland of Nashville.

If cultural events around the world are going to be looking for a new safe home in the post-pandemic world, why not this one?