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Thorpdale Potato Festival

Ticket Information

  • Family Ticket - 2 Adults and up to 4 Children: $45.00 each
  • Adults: $15.00 each
  • Children 4-16: $10.00 each
  • Additional fees may apply

Dates

  • Sun 10 Mar 2019, 9:30am–4:30pm

Restrictions

Family Friendly

Listed by

thorpdale

The Thorpdale Potato Festival returns in its 29th year. Thorpdale spuds are known Australia-wide, not only because of the huge variety of potatoes grown in our very fertile soil but because of the soil itself—rich red volcanic loam which is extremely hard to replicate elsewhere!

Spuds rule the roost at the Festival of course—we have the Vin Rowe Spud Challenge, which brings competitors back year after year to shoulder the 50kg bag of spuds and run the course—although the rules have changed next year to make things interesting. Then we have the Potato Stack—throwing sacks of spuds onto pallets—growing higher and higher. The Potato Picking for young and old, guys and gals is hotly competitive too.

For the nippers, we have the Potato Putt (those spuds don't behave quite like a shot does on landing!) as well as Potato Sack Races—and there are free giant castles and slides and a petting zoo and "Spuddy", the Festival mascot, will be walking around during the day giving out little packs of chips.

We have a photography competition ("farming" is the theme)—applications are invited and can be downloaded on our website. One of the fun events to be held in the main arena is the Tug-of-War. We have had teams from footy clubs and pubs, guys and gals, kids and schools—who will we have in 2019. It's a laugh a minute as those heels dig in.

The Victorian Yard Utility Farmdog Association is bringing their brilliant canine stars to show us their sheep-management skills, we have sheep shearing demonstrations, motor-cross exhibitions during the day and one of the big draw-cards is our "Hessians on the Field" where very talented seamstresses work during the year to create wondrous designs from hessian—new and old—to be paraded on our centre-stage catwalk.

Market stalls abound (once again applications for these can be downloaded from our website) and of course, there is music, lots and lots of food, hot and cold beverages and an (enclosed) bar area for the adults. At our 2017 Festival we surprised everyone by having the delightful Miguel Mestre from "The Living Room" and his TV crew with us all day—unfortunately we can't promise such a treat next year but we've put in an order for a lovely sunny day.

Our event has attracted over 10,000 attendees at each day since we re-started the Festival (unfortunately it went into recession until 2015 due to high costs of insurance etc) and we have had people comment that they remembered coming as children and are bringing their own children back now.

Put the date on your iPad, 2019 calendar and in your diaries now... it's an event not to be missed. We're only a very easy and enjoyable 1 1/2 hour drive from Melbourne down the Princes Freeway and then a right-hand turn South at Trafalgar and a 10-Km lovely winding drive up the Strzelecki Ranges to Thorpdale township where you'll see plenty of signage directing you to the Recreation Reserve.

Important: We do have one restriction—and for some a very sad one—and that is we can't have any family dogs allowed into the Festival. This is very important and one restriction which will be strictly adhered to, so please, please, please, don't bring your dearly loved little dog with you to the Festival.

Children under 4 enter free.

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