Reward cherry on top for COF
AS THIS year’s Carnival of Flowers prepares to wind down, there will be a welcome reward for those who were able to make the event happen.
The 2016 carnival has been nominated for a Tourism Queensland award.
This time around however, the event is going for a bigger gong.
“We are the current champion for the event and festival category,” Toowoomba Regional Councillor Geoff McDonald said.
“It will be interesting to see if we win this year because we have shifted for the first year to major event and festival.
“We were in the category under but we’re in the big sandpit now.”
With the swathes of visitors filling Queens Park 10 days into carnival, Cr McDonald believes there is no reason why the event’s success won’t see even more people heading up the range in the week to come.
The award nomination means the Carnival of Flowers will be up against a number of marquee events from across Queensland.
But the nomination alone is worthy recognition, according to Cr McDonald, who praised everyone behind the scenes for the success of this year’s event.
“A finalist in the state awards is good recognition for the many hundreds of volunteers and community groups,” he said.
“They are the ones who deserve a fair bit of the credit along with the gardeners.
“Whether it is the private gardeners or the council gardeners, you need to stop and spend some time walking through our gardens as a local to see how many people visit Picnic Point, Laurel Bank, Queens Park and Spring Bluff across the 10 days of carnival.
“I really think, given that we are day 10 now and in mid-school holidays with another week to go, I would not be surprised if we had similar numbers in our parks next week.”
The winner of the Queensland gold award will gain automatic entry into the Australian Tourism Awards.
The Queensland Tourism Awards takes place on November 10.