18th July 2018
Turning out in the thousands over the weekend, Mackay put its best foot forward at this year’s annual Food and Wine Day in Queens Park.
With over 10,000 punters attending the multi-faceted event, festival organiser Sonia Anderson expressed her delight at the record breaking turn out.
"It was a huge day and all the feedback I had was that it was the largest crowd for several years,” she said
"I know the two bars, they had to duck out to replenish (stock)."
Boasting a large number of local gourmet food, wine and beer stalls, event goers were faced with a choice of three live entertainment stages, craft market stalls, the Greater Whitsunday Farmers’ Market and a devoted Kidzone.
"The music was fantastic, there have been comments on Facebook that the music was fantastic, the crowd were up dancing,” said Ms Anderson.
"From the feedback I've had there were no incidents, everyone was really well-behaved,
"When you've got that number of people I think that's quite an achievement.”
Patrice and Simon Zarzecki of Plattered Up, one of the many stallholders to serve local produce on Saturday, spoke the Daily Mercury.
"Last year we sold out really early, we underestimated the demand. This year we tripled it thinking 'yeah we'll definitely have it',” Ms Zarzecki said.
Instead, the entrepreneurs sold out at 2.30pm, staggered by the overwhelming interest.
"Last year we were busy, this year we had five of us, and the platters we had them made up before we started and they were flying out as quick as we could get them out.”
Sonia Anderson confirmed that everyone, from the crowd to those behind the scenes, were speechless at the success of the 2018 event.
"I know the food vendors were really happy... everyone I've spoken to, the bands, Casey Barnes, they just had such a great time and were blown away by the crowd,” she said.
