Event mayhem

Day one of the festival is complete! It has been a fabulous (yet frenzied!) day. Today it was the Long Table Feast, and the Margaret River Sidewalk Street Fiesta. It didn't matter how prepared we were, there was lots of rushing around and madness. I think there is always a lesson to be learnt for next time, but I also realise that running around on event day is to be expected. For the Long Table Feast I had to print the menus, guillotine them and then race them over to Leeuwin Estate where the 5-course lunch was being held. I got them there at 11am, just in time for the 12.30pm lunch. The long tables were set amongst the native karri trees at the incredible Leeuwin Estate. The beautiful smells of native flora, mixed with lovely ladies perfume filled the air, as the 208 guests arrived. It was obvious to all that this was a special event. For the short time while guests arrived I assisted with ticketing which simply involved welcoming guests, taking their tickets and directing them towards their first glass of wine!


Other than this brief interlude at the Long Table Feast, I ran errands for my supervisor, and focused on the Sidewalk Street Fiesta which was at 4.30-7.30pm this evening. The Sidewalk Street Fiesta is the community element to this four-day wine region festival which welcomes guests from Perth, interstate and the world. It is the classic free wine-tasting event on the main street of town in Margaret River for locals and festival patrons to soak up the entertainment and sample wines. In the past there has been road closures which were canned this year. I think it made the event better. By containing the crowd to the Sidewalks it felt busier and livelier. When the roads are closed the crowds are too dispersed which can result in the event feeling a little limp. Another change was the wine-tastings were actually held inside businesses along the main street of town rather than in a park. This meant people were buying things, and the shops involved could enjoy a little bit of PR! Some of shops such as the book shops made for a particularly quirky and fun setting to do a wine-tasting.

Sagika Boutique

Sagika Boutique, a ladies fashion shop, hosted Bransgrove Estate. The ladies who own Sagika, (Sandie, Gina & Karen) asked for a 'nice winery' to do their tasting. Bransgrove Estate is a lovely boutique family winery. It made sense to partner Bransgrove Estate with Sagika Boutique.

Rivertales Book Shop

Rivertales Book Shop hosted Arimia for the wine-tasting event. It wasn't until I dropped into Rivertales during a postering run in town three weeks ago that owner Susan Royer said they would like to be involved. Her partner works with Arimia, so she personally organised the tasting. The backdrop of books made for a warm setting. 

Margaret River Memories

Margaret River Memories had a wine tasting with Jarvis Estate. This was the miracle tasting. They were originally meant to have Evans & Tate do a wine tasting with them. Unfortunately Evans & Tate did not have an Approved Manager with ID card and were refused by Liquor Licensing. Today the ladies at MR Memories found Jarvis Estate and contacted Liquor Licensing themselves and made their event happen! Not to mention they put on a fabulous spread at the front of the shop and also served cheeses!

The Spaghetti Bowl

The Spaghetti Bowl had Cowaramup Wines & Clown Fish. Because they were a licensed restaurant, I did not need to include the Spaghetti Bowl on my Liquor License which was a bonus. During my call-out for wineries I phoned Cowaramup Wines & Clown Fish to see if they would be interested in being involved. It was then that they told me they already were, and were partnered with the Spaghetti Bowl! Easy.

Margaret River Book Shop

Margaret River Book Shop had Preveli Wines. Interestingly, Preveli Wines cellar door actually doubles up as the Prevelly Beach caravan park shop. It is a locals wine, and can be bought in large bottles. They do a particularly delicous Cabernet Merlot which was one of the wines at the Long Table Feast. The Preveli Wines are made at the Fraser-Gallop winery.

Settlers Liquor

This was a walk in the park for Settlers Liquor who featured a wine tasting from Flametree. As a bottle-shop they are quite familiar with having guest wineries come to the shop to spruik their wines through a tasting. The gentleman in the blue shirt and I must have been going in the same direction because he ended up at a few more wineries at the same time.

Tunbridge Gallery

The Tunbridge Gallery hosted a wine tasting with Thompson Estate. Both the gallery and winery were easily the most organised of all of the premises I dealt with. They arranged their tasting, got the paperwork back to me immediately, and caused no problems with the Liquor Licensing. This was a a civilised affair- I think guests enjoyed being able to look at art while trying the Thompson Estate wines.

The Good Olive

The Good Olive enjoyed a wine tasting from the reputable Cape Grace. Karen Karri-Davies who is pictured is the Cape Grace owner and was able to provide expert knowledge about the current vintage and her wines.

Goodfellas Cafe

Goodfellas Cafe had Howard Park & MadFish Wines. That is me in the photo. A lady who was tasting wines demanded my camera from me. She said that she bet I did not have a single photo of myself from the night and that she would take one. It was a little bit embarrassing, but nice to get shot of my work experience!

Margaret River Visitor Centre

The Margaret River Visitor Centre had not one, not two but four wineries. They had Windance Estate, Fermoy, House of Cards and Vasse Felix. After 6.30pm the public wine tasting at the Visitor Centre was ended to allow a special VIP tasting for our festival sponsors The Sunday Times, Channel 9 & Gourmet Traveller.






















Other than wine tastings there was market stalls, bands, buskers, street performers and marching bands up and down the sidewalks on the main stretch of town to create a lively atmosphere. At the top of town was the family section, with face painting, a bouncy castle, DJ Swami and food stalls.


I did a decent proportion of the event planning for the Sidewalk Street Fiesta, which made it feel all of the more special to me. Early on in the piece I had to source wineries for local businesses who had not yet found partnered with a winery. I've had meetings the Augusta-Margaret River Shire Council and the Margaret River Visitor Centre in the planning stages. I've arranged for the official paperwork and Liquor Licensing which has been a long, complicated process due to the large number of businesses involved, and various venues to be licensed. I designed the official mud-map for the event too. The mud-map is a black and white DL sized flyer which represented the main street of town, all relevant details, and all of the wine-tasting event locations for the evening. Unfortunately, I could not print the mud-maps until today- as I have been waiting with baited breath to find out if our liquor license would be approved before I went ahead and printed off 1000 back-to-front copies of this flyer. Over the past three weeks, we have experienced a series of difficulties with our liquor licensing, and it was only last night, (the very night before the festival!), did it finally come through. The mud-maps were the principal piece of documentation which gave the Sidewalk Street Fiesta any order. Without these, nobody would know what was going on or where the wine-tastings were being held. Furthermore, I snuck in some cheeky publicity for tomorrows Vintage Festival by printing that on the back! In the afternoon half of these mud-maps went to the businesses hosting events. During the first two hours of the festival my supervisor's kids and I personally handed out the remainder of mud-maps to people on the street- and there was literally a few thousand people!

Tomorrow is the Vintage Festival, and I have a very early start!


Student: Keely Robertson
Campus: Bentley Campus
Placement: Travel Management Group / Margaret River Wine Region Festival