The Bicheno Food and Wine Festival is well-known for its fine food and wine, and for the first time this year has been expanded to give patrons the best possible experience of the coast.

Festival chairman David Reed said instead of having people travel from Launceston or Hobart for a day of festivities, they decided to extend the experience across a whole weekend.

He said a series of signature events had been developed to run across the weekend as drawcards to the festival.

“On the Friday night, there’s a special dinner for example, at the Lobster Shack. So it’s fresh lobster, but accompanied by a flight of wines, and then meeting the winemaker from Apsley Gorge, Brian Franklin,” he said.

“Then there are a couple of lunches which have been arranged with the Freycinet Marine Farm, so getting out into the water and opening a couple of oysters and drinking a bottle of bubbles.”

Other events include surfing lessons, a recovery brunch at the pub, and free music at the Devil’s Corner.

“So, we’ve got a whole lot of these signature events that will fill up your weekend,” he said.

Mr Reed said the festival had been running for 12 years.

“It’s grown from nothing to filling up the Lions Park,” he said.

“It’s a really big ask to make it any bigger in that location. We’re better off to try and give everybody a much better holiday, a much better weekend. That’s what we’re trying to do.

“Last year, 700 people came from Launceston and we got 900 from Hobart. That’s a huge amount of people.

“It’s still a signature event for the East Coast, in the sense that we haven’t changed the rules about being an East Coast provider.

“This is an absolute exemplar of what is good in food and beverage on the East Coast.”