Finishing up on Monday afternoon, there was a sense of relief and achievement as the Tasmanian Craft Fair wrapped up for 2017.
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It has been a successful year.
Tim Biggs was signing off as the fair’s director with strong visitor numbers, great feedback and a healthy cheque on its way to the event’s official charity.
“We’ve had a really good attendance for visitors. It’s been fairly even over the craft fair because it’s been good weather on almost all days,” Mr Biggs said.
And it looked like the best was yet to come.
“The quality and standard of the exhibitors are much higher and they’re really happy with their outcomes and that means we’ll be having even more stalls wanting to come next year and they’ll be vying to be better,” Mr Biggs said.
“Next year will be an even better craft fair.”
An international twist was in the works for next year’s fair, he said.
“The new director is already planning a visiting exhibition from Cambodia.”
It was a positive year for Mr Biggs, who is a member of the Deloraine Rotary Club – the fair organiser, to finish off his two years as a director.
“That’s a nice cheque to be handing over,” Mr Biggs said.
“We’ll make our budget and we’ll have lots of money to then disperse to very worthy causes.”
“I don’t think there was anything that went wrong at all. It worked like clockwork, which after 37 years, we’ve had a bit of practice at it,” he said.
The transformation from two food areas to three had been welcomed by visitors, who had “much more opportunity to sit down, relax and enjoy”.
Speaking on Monday morning, Mr Biggs said signs of the fair would quickly disappear for another year.
“We go like lightening, we’re usually finished by 7pm.”
“The key to our success year after year, for the past 37 years, is diversity and quality. We have something for everyone, and everything available for sale is of the highest quality and made right here in Australia,” Mr Biggs said.
“And we continue to seek out new and different crafts throughout the world to showcase at the event.”
The Tasmanian Craft Fair will receive $10,000 each year for the next two years from the state government.
Liberal Member for Lyons Guy Barnett said the fair was a great opportunity for local Tasmanian artists to showcase their craft.
“The Tasmanian Craft Fair is the largest of its type in Tasmania, and it could not exist without the tireless work from volunteers, particularly members of the Rotary Club here in Deloraine,” Mr Barnett said.
The craft fair was an “exemplary example” of the types of events and activities which helped the state government reach its target to have 70 per cent of all visitors to stay overnight in regional areas during their trip to Tasmania by 2022, he said.
Tess Brunton
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
