August 22, 2022
Kingaroy’s BaconFest made a welcome reappearance on the weekend, with organisers claiming a new attendance record for the festival’s third outing.
After being cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the three-day event returned with the same format that had proven so successful in the past.
The event kicked off on Friday night with a sold-out, $85-a-head Wine and Swine evening in the Kingaroy Town Hall forecourt.
This was followed early on Saturday morning with the Rashers Rush, a cycling and running event on the South Burnett Rail Trail co-ordinated by the Wondai Country Running Festival and Kingaroy Nutters.
Then at 10:00am, the Town Hall area was thrown open to the public.
Guests could enjoy food and market stalls; live music, take in cooking demonstrations from visiting chefs; watch a bacon-eating competition and a fashion parade; or check out the first day of the hotly contested two-day cook off where competitors could vie for honours in the SunPork Smoke-Off, an official round of the 2022 Australasian BBQ Alliance Championship Series.
And in the evening, the PigJam Battle Of The Bands, organised by the South Burnett Youth Council, drew a good crowd to O’Neill Square.
On Sunday, the festival kicked off with a $75-a-head Long Table breakfast which was also sold out, before the gates were opened for another day of food vans, music, market stalls and pork-inspired fun.
Chief Baconeer Kristy Board said attendance numbers at this year’s BaconFest set a record, with first-day attendances exceeding the crowd that had turned up to the festival’s first outing in 2018.
Motels in Kingaroy were fully booked over the weekend, and the benefits also spread to adjoining towns, with moteliers in Nanango and Wondai reporting they had also been able to fill extra rooms with festivalgoers.
Photo Gallery:
[Photos: Kingaroy BaconFest, Past Tense Photography, James Curtain, Ros Heit, Cr Danita Potter and Cr Kirstie Schumacher]
