It’s Out! AWBF 2017 Preview Program

We hope you will love the 2017 MyState Australian Wooden Boat Festival program, but which bits will you love most?  Would it be the amazing display of 500 wooden boats across the Hobart waterfront, or the expert speakers at the ANMM International Wooden Boat Symposium?  Perhaps you will make a bee-line for the Maritime Marketplace, with its Santa’s Workshop of gorgeous tools, useful products and maritime bits that are so hard to find elsewhere.  Maybe the Waterside Tavern is more your idea of how to spend a social weekend with boat-mad friends.  Or do you want to see famous chefs preparing Tasmanian seafood in the TSIC Seafood Theatre?  Maybe you’d enjoy the Hobart City Council ‘Concert Under the Stars’ in Parliament House Lawns, featuring the enormously popular Royal Australian Navy Band of Tasmania, surely the liveliest military band you’ve ever seen.

You don’t want to miss any of the best bits, so we’ve prepared a special Festival Preview Program for you, and it’s out now!

The 32-page program has essential information on the sailing schedules for our tall ships and feature vessels, a detailed program of all the major events day by-day and some fascinating articles on the people and events you’ll be seeing come February.  There are features on the Dutch Project, our special nod to the 375th anniversary of Tasman’s visit to our beautiful island and the remarkable tall ship Tenacious, all the way out from its home port in Southampton, UK on a campaign to make blue-water sailing accessible for people of all abilities.

‘We have traditionally struggled to get every detail ready for the Official Souvenir Program of the AWBF, because one of the most important elements is the final list of participating boats and where to find them.  We don’t know that precisely until just a few weeks before the event and of course, people like to make their travel plans well in advance.’ says General Manager Paul Cullen. ‘Our solution is to publish a preview program, which lists all the principal events on the four day schedule.  You can plan your visit to include special occasions like the Parade of Sail and the Wrest Point Cup, or catch great speakers at the ANMM International Wooden Boat Symposium.  We can’t tell you precisely what time the afternoon sea breeze will be coming through, but at least you’ll have a good idea of what you want to see at the festival.’

The AWBF Preview Program is available as a free download from the AWBF website (australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au/festival-program).

The Preview Program is a co-production with Tasmanian design collective The Foundry, publishers of arts and culture quarterly Lume Magazine.

‘We will be distributing 10,000 copies of this special print edition throughout Tasmania and into travel centres and yacht clubs Australia-wide. The AWBF Preview Program carries a directory of tall ship cruises available, articles on major exhibitions including The Dutch Project and details of the personalities and feature vessels you’ll be seeing at the event,’ Cullen said. A welcome message from Hobart City Lord Mayor Sue Hickey marks a significant increase in support for this hugely popular event, which draws tens of thousands of people to Australia’s most beautiful port city.

‘We will still publish the Official Souvenir Program in January,’ Cullen said.  ‘Many see this as highly collectible, with an accurate listing of every boat, and every berth location at the festival. We’ll have a specially expanded section on our guest nation, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, explaining the 375-year connection between that country and the Great South Land that would become Australia.  This ties in with a significant Dutch presence on site and a brilliant exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery on the early Dutch explorers.  This is a very high quality, magazine-style publication that makes a wonderful memory of the event.  It will be available in print form only.’

Look out for your free copy of the AWBF 2017 Special Preview Program at cafes and coffee shops, booking offices and information centres near you.  You can pick up spare copies at the AWBF office in the Salamanca Arts Centre (call us on 03 6223 3375 for directions) or simply download your personal copy:

2017 AWBF Preview Program