August 26, 2019
Kingaroy’s Town Hall forecourt and Glendon Street were awash with people on Saturday, all keen to pig out on fun at the town’s second annual BaconFest.
This year, the Festival layout was reconfigured slightly to take better advantage of its location.
The SunPork Smoke-Off was moved from the Glendon Street car park to the rear of the Town Hall, freeing up space for a cooking demonstration stage and extra food vans.
Little Piggies in the Park and the Bacon Olympics were shifted to the laneway beside the Kingaroy Library.
These changes helped make the Glendon Street forecourt the focus of the weekend’s activities, and ensured visitors didn’t have to walk far to take in the different offerings.
The festival kicked off on Friday night with the Wine and Swine cocktail party in the Glendon Street forecourt.
On Saturday, the Rasher’s Rush community fun run/ride along the South Burnett Rail Trail – organised by the South Burnett Mountain Bike club – attracted 53 participants at 7:00am.
The main BaconFest action began a few hours later with Glendon Street quickly filling with people.
The stalls and entertainment ran from 10:00am to 9:00pm.
Celebrity chef Adrian Richardson and South Burnett Food Ambassador Jason Ford gave cooking demonstrations to appreciative audiences, who were then invited to sample the results.
Nine entrants competed in the Miss BaconFest Pin-Up Pageant, happily posing for photos on the Town Hall steps on Saturday afternoon while judges made their deliberations.
Brisbane-based Alicia Altin (“Barbie Banks”) was eventually crowned Miss BaconFest.
The Long Table Breakfast in Glendon Street – which was booked out weeks before – was the highlight of Sunday’s action.
This was followed by more stalls, entertainment and cooking demonstrations that went into the afternoon.
The SunPork Smoke-Off attracted more than 40 teams competing for points in the national Australasian Barbecue Alliance competition.
The winners were announced on Sunday afternoon before a big crowd.
“Signature Smoke” took home the $5000 Grand Champion prize with “Country Boys BBQ” winning the $2500 reserve champion prize.
“Fiery Briskets BBQ”, in 18th spot, picked up $500 as the best local team in the competition.
In all, the three-day BaconFest ran very smoothly thanks to a small army of volunteers.
The biggest problem appeared to be a lack of CBD car parking spaces.
Latecomers on Saturday found they had to park several blocks away from Glendon Street however this situation eased on Sunday.
The wet weather which hampered last year’s inaugural event was also absent.
While overnight temperatures were low, both days were warm and sunny which helped to attract more visitors.
BaconFest organisers estimated the total attendance this year was about 15,000, almost double last year’s 8000 over the two days.
southburnett.com.au spoke to representatives from several motels and caravan parks who said they had a busy weekend, with other events in the local region also attracting bookings.
