Welcome
Babinda Harvest Festival is an annual Babinda event. In this sugar town, it celebrates the start of the sugarcane harvest (mid June), but also provides an opportunity for people from all around to come together and have fun.
The festival has been running almost continuously for 48 years (2011), missing only one year after cyclone Larry in 2006.
Babinda is also arguably Australia’s wettest town, so gumboots and umbrellas also get a mention with the Gumboot and Umbrella tossing competitions.
One of the more popular events is the Harvest Princess Quest. The entrants raise funds and take part in community events leading up to the festival. All money raised goes towards mounting the festival. These young Babinda people gain valuable skills in self-confidence, community leadership and experience representing their sponsors.
Key events:
1st Saturday (28 May) - Harvest Cabaret – the princesses are formally introduced at the basket cabaret and dance.
Festival week (30 May-3 June) – various community events (trivia night), and Munro Street Traders dress up their windows and staff according to the festival theme.
2nd Saturday (4 June) - Festival Day – Grand Parade with themed floats from businesses, schools and clubs. Then it’s off to the Showgrounds for an afternoon and evening of free entertainment, amusements and rides, the crowning of the Harvest Queens, fireworks display, displays from Babinda schools, local produce, and historical agricultural machinery, pony rides, lolly drop, and a live band and bar from 8 till midnight.
Also, uniquely Babinda: Sugar Bowl competition, Gumboot Toss and Umbrella Toss.
