The Babinda Harvest Festival is an annual Babinda event. In this sugar town, it celebrates the start of the sugarcane harvest (mid June), as well as celebrating the harvesting of other tropical produce from our region – bananas, pawpaws, tropical flowers and vailla to name a few.
The festival also provides an opportunity for people from Babinda and surrounding district to come together and have fun.
The festival has been running almost continuously for 49 years (2012), missing only one year after cyclone Larry in 2006.
Babinda is officially Australia’s wettest town, so gumboots and umbrellas are highlighted at the festival 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:
Harvest Cabaret (26 May) - Harvest Cabaret – the princesses are formally introduced at the basket cabaret and dance.
Harvest Festival Week (28 May to 2 June) – various community events (trivia night), and Munro Street Traders dress up their windows and staff according to the festival theme.
Street Parade and Harvest Festival (2 June) – 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.