Koenig: We must support events

AHorsham community leader has urged people to be proactive and support events, shows and performances that come to or develop in the region.

Horsham Rural City councillor Josh Koenig, among people who attended Horsham Rockfest at Sawyer Park, said Horsham and the broader Wimmera needed to ensure they embraced special events.

“I thought Rockfest was a great event for Horsham. It was a fantastic day and night of entertainment and numbers attending were pretty good. Everyone I have spoken to shares the same view,” he said.

“But I think a message to the people of Horsham is that we on the council often get asked to have more things for people to do. So when things like this come along, we as a community need to show our support.

“It’s a kind of use-it-or-lose-it way of looking at this. If we want big acts and shows to come to Horsham and promoters to consider coming here, we need to be able to demonstrate that we’re right behind them.”

Between 800 and 1000 people attended Horsham Rockfest, which featured prominent performers Shannon Noll and Reece Mastin, famous retro rock acts The Chantoozies and The Choir Boys and country rock talent Paul Costa.

Mildura Entertainment organised the event as part of a regional Rockfest series and could not confirm after the event whether the show would return next year.

Cr Koenig said when he and his wife first arrived at the venue he was immediately reminded how good Horsham Soundshell and Sawyer Park were for the district.

“My wife and I weren’t huge fans of the bands that were playing, but we enjoyed it and couldn’t speak highly enough about the event,” he said.

“I can remember saying during one of the first acts that this is what the soundshell is built for and that it needs to happen more often to take full advantage of the facilities. It was just a great day.

“It just suggested that we as a community need to get behind big events that bring people together.

“The same applies to Kannamaroo festival and our other attractions.”

Cr Koenig said he noted while at Horsham Rockfest the number people he did not recognise.

“I obviously know a lot of people in Horsham and I had a bit of a look around and there was a lot of people there I didn’t know. This suggested to me that many in the crowd were visitors, which I think is a good thing,” he said.

“We just need to make sure we grab hold of these events so when these promoters go away, they want to come back.

“We need to continue to grow Horsham and grow the number of events that come to or are in Horsham.”