Boost for festivals and jobs in hepburn and macedon ranges

A re-elected Andrews Labor Government will provide extra support for local communities to attract and deliver better events across the Hepburn and Macedon Ranges Shires – creating jobs, attracting more visitors and boosting businesses.

The Hepburn and Macedon Ranges Shires are home to many fantastic community-led festivals, bringing families together and keeping hotels, bars and restaurants buzzing.

At the heart of these festivals are passionate volunteers, who work to share the region’s unique history, culture and produce with the rest of our state.

To help grow these festivals and build on the region’s enviable events calendar, Labor will invest $200,000 towards community festivals in Hepburn and the Macedon Ranges Shires.

Each shire will receive $100,000 to improve and expand existing festivals and lure new events to the region.

The Andrews Labor Government proudly supports festivals like ChillOut in Daylesford and the Lost Trades Fair in Kyneton through our $20 million Regional Events Fund, but there’s more to do.

Only Labor will back our regional communities and deliver the events and infrastructure these local economies need to welcome more visitors and create more jobs.

Labor has supported more than 180 regional events in just four years, with a dedicated arm of Visit Victoria solely focused on driving visitation to our regions.

Since Labor established Visit Victoria, more than 22,000 new tourism jobs have been created and visitor expenditure has increased from $22.8 billion to $26.8 billion.

Labor has also restored the funding the Liberals cut for major events and will continue investing in our tourism industry to lure visitors, boost businesses and support Victorian jobs.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Tourism and Major Events, John Eren
"The Hepburn Shire and Macedon Ranges are already hot spots for tourism in Victoria, but we want to grow this vital industry even further. That’s why we’re backing organisers and volunteers to deliver bigger and better events."

"You can’t trust the Liberals when it comes to tourism – they’ve made it clear they will close Visit Victoria, and cut the jobs and events that go with it."

Quote attributable to Member for Macedon Mary-Anne Thomas
"The Hepburn and Macedon Ranges Shires are home to so many fantastic community festivals and only Labor will provide these events with the support they need to thrive."

"Community festivals bring people together, create new jobs, attract more visitors and boost our local businesses."