Cath Peachey has stepped down as chair of Narooma Rocks after 13 years of voluntary involvement with Narooma Oyster Festival. Photo: Supplied.
Having stepped down as chair of Narooma Rocks this year and after 13 years’ voluntary involvement with the Narooma Oyster Festival, Cath Peachey has reflected on the importance of festivals to regional economies and community pride – and the events’ difficulties.
The oyster festival started as an initiative of the Narooma Chamber of Commerce to bring visitors to town outside of the peak season.
When Ms Peachey first volunteered at the festival in 2012, around 80 per cent of attendees were locals. At the 18th festival in 2025, 85 per cent were visitors to the region.
The festival has grown enormously from around 2500 attendees in 2012 to nearly 10,000 this year.
“The budget was about $80,000 back then,” Ms Peachey said. “Now it is around $1 million to deliver the event and the impact of that is very significant to the region.”
The festival has grown to the point that it benefits accommodation providers from Batemans Bay to Bermagui. The festival encourages and supports this by running coaches from neighbouring towns to the festival.
Festival-goers are staying in the region for five days, not just overnight like they did in the early years. So, they are spending more money elsewhere in the region.
The 2024 festival drew more than $4 million into the local economy, plus $1.2 million in discretionary spending.
Australia’s Biggest Oyster Competition commentator Simon Marnie with Bernie Connell and his winning oyster ‘Jack Junior’, David Charlesworth of Australia’s Oyster Coast, and Dr Jayne Weller of Montague Vets at Narooma Oyster Festival on 3 May. Photo: Marion Williams.
A lesser known benefit is the famil. The festival invites food and travel journalists from Sydney and Canberra.
Merivale has been a big supporter of the famil in recent years. Its PR team brings the targeted journalists to Narooma on a seaplane. Tourism operators like Southbound Escapes ferry them around, showcasing all the region has to offer. The subsequent string of articles after the festival helps keep the region on the radar of travellers.
“We are always thinking about how to showcase local businesses and producers, how do we get visitors to stay longer, and how do we promote other things to do in the region,” Ms Peachey said.
She said most regional towns had an event to attract visitors who would not otherwise come. The events were used for branding to differentiate the region from others, and to build the regional visitor economy outside of the peak season. Increasingly they were run by not-for-profit organisations like Narooma Rocks or by local councils as the maths did not add up for commercial operators.
For all their importance, regional events are very challenging.
The cost of infrastructure – power, water, sewerage – has increased exponentially. With no suitable hard infrastructure on-site, each year the oyster festival must be built from the ground up.
As the festival has grown, which is often a condition of government funding, it has outgrown local suppliers. The festival was quoted $5000 just for the delivery of cool rooms from Sydney or Wollongong this year, before the hire costs.
Add to that insurance and regulation. The oyster festival needs multiple licences, and each has a cost to comply.
“It is very different from capital cities where people are more guaranteed to come and suppliers are at hand,” Ms Peachey said.
Narooma Oyster Festival champions rock oysters and oyster farmers like Damon Fernihough who grow them. Photo: Supplied.
Since COVID, people are buying tickets at the last minute.
“You need the certainty of ticket sales to give suppliers assurance you can pay them. The scale of the event requires you to move to ticketing platforms, but they don’t pay you until afterwards,” Ms Peachey said. “It has taken us years and years to get confidence we can stage the next year’s event, but you’re only one bad weather or pandemic-style event away from undermining that confidence.”
Weather forecasts hugely impact ticket sales in that critical week leading up to the festival.
The oyster festival is more at risk from the weather than others. If conditions are unfavourable a month earlier, estuaries may close and poor oyster conditions might mean oyster farmers are reluctant to bring their oysters.
Ms Peachey said it was impossible for regional events to keep ticket prices affordable without government support and would like to see three-year funding. That would bring greater certainty, efficiencies, and better deals from suppliers.
She said government support to regional events needed to be prioritised over city events.
“There is a flurry of events every week in the cities,” she said. “Having two big events in regional areas is about economic survival. This is what keeps regional towns going.”
Ms Peachey is so grateful for the support from the community, particularly the volunteers, the business community and of course the oyster farmers.
“We couldn’t deliver the festival without our oyster farmers and the volunteers,” she said.
“I have loved it, but it has been all-consuming,” Ms Peachey said. “Now I have more time to become an oyster sommelier.”
