In the second year it is being held in Cooroy, the Australian Body Art Festival is already a huge success attracting approximately 7000 people last year. It has great benefits for the community too and organisers are calling on support to help support the festival as it continues to grow.
“It’s a great family friendly event that showcases several types of body painting from artists around Australia as well as wearable art, art installations, photography and entertainment. It gains international attention and provides a lot of benefit back to the community which is amazing for a free community run festival. But the event is only in its second year in Cooroy, so it does need support especially from sponsors to help grow and sustain it,” said event manager, Danielle Taylor.
The 2017 event was attended by 7000 spectators, 55 artists and 42 models with over 80 volunteers making the event a success. Attendees came from far and wide with nearly 60% coming from outside Noosa and 30% of visitors staying for at least one night. This equated to thousands of days of accommodation throughout Noosa. Attendees were surveyed on how much they spent while here and it was indicated that over one million dollars was spent here in our region as a result of the festival.
“The festival costs approximately $40,000 to run so it provided an ecomomic return to the region of 25 times its cost. The economic benefits alone are a fantastic result for the region but there are also social, community and cultural benefits,” explained Danielle.
“We had over 80 volunteers that put in hundreds of hours of work to make the festival a success. The volunteers rightfully felt a real sense of pride at their achievement as it was such a great fund social weekend too. Most of the volunteers have signed up again to come back this year because they enjoyed it so much. We also have a lot of community organisations that are involved such as Butter Factory Arts Centre, Cooroora Woodworkers and the I Give A Buck Foundation.”
“The support and exposure for the arts community is fantastic. Many of the artists often comment that it is like a reunion and they love coming back year after year. Similarly, we get that feedback from spectators also, so the event has a real following.”
“We’ve had great support from sponsors already but still have opportunities available. As the event grows so do costs and we still have about $4000 to raise for the event this year. We have sponsorship opportunities still available from as low as $250 and are also doing a crowdfunding campaign and looking for some raffle prizes to raise more funds. Details of how you can contribute are on the website. It’s a great opportunity to support a fantastic local event that gives so much back to our region,” said Danielle Taylor.
Sponsors and funding partners already on board include Tourism & Events Queensland, Sunshine Coast Daily, Wythes Real Estate, Tourism Noosa, Firefly Solutions, Cooroy Community Bank Branch of Bendigo Bank, SPV Accounting, The Shed @ Cooroy, Matt Blak, Wattle Media, Butter Factory Arts Centre, Gelignite Jacks, Bold as Love Jewellery, Studio Republic, Michelle Maclennan Art, Always Wicked Art, Club Cooroy RSL, Fairytale Events & Equip4Hire, Sea 91.9FM, Derivan, Cooroy Supa IGA, Tewantin Noosa RSL, Jandamarra Cadd and Hinternoosa Real Estate.
