Bellarine Times
Tuesday 18 June 2013
VOL 6. No 25
www.bellarinetimes.com.au
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Let’s go Lego – Lego convention Queenscliffe Bricks swoops in to town this weekend (see page 23), while off season tourism in the Borough of Queenscliffe is ready to take off (see story this page).
Events to draw visitors to the borough
WINTER WONDER BY HAMISH BROOKS
THE shortest day of the year is under a week away, but a series of local events will leave Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale streets with a warm glow. In the next week, the Borough of Queenscliffe will host a weekend Lego event and a Queenscliff Music Festival (QMF) warm up concert, which will be followed by a month of retail streetscapes decorated with fairy lights as part of Light Up July. The Bellarine Lighthouse Film Festival
will follow later that month. Narelle Needham, Otway Tourism’s destination marketing officer for the Bellarine, said it was crucial for the local economy for events to generate momentum and interest during the cooler months. “The Queenscliff Lonsdale Business and Tourism Association (QLBTA) is coming up with some great ideas for the off-season. This weekend we have (Lego convention) Queenscliffe Bricks and the Queenscliff Music Festival event. “The Bellarine Lighthouse Film
Festival is a festival of arthouse films on the last weekend of July. “They are also trying to do things like Light Up July, thinking of innovative creative ideas which will show some vibrancy on the streets during winter.” QLBTA spokesperson Jenni Limb said it had been her dream to see lights on the streets in mid-winter in the borough and shops in Hesse Street, Point Lonsdale Road and at Queenscliff Harbour were likely to feature them. “In the three retail precincts in the borough, all the businesses are putting
fairy lights in their windows to give people that winter feeling. They are not Christmas lights. They are solar-powered and will come on at dusk and switch off in the morning. I’m hoping that it attracts people down, even if it’s just for a day. It’s getting dark early now so a day trip from Melbourne isn’t out of the question.” QLBTA was also behind Matt Moran’s recent trip to the borough, where he presented the association’s community cookbook to Queenscliffe mayor Helene Cameron. Ms Needham said the high number and diversity of events was
testament to hard work and imagination, and built momentum locally. She cited the recent National Celtic Festival in Portarlington as a prime example of the economic benefits that spread from a local attraction, with many businesses across the Bellarine benefiting from the influx of people. Light Up July will run from July 1-31. For information on the QMF Winter Warm Up concert and Queenscliffe Bricks, turn to pages 63 and 23 respectively. For a two-page photo gallery of the National Celtic Festival, see pages 16 and 17.
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