Shellharbour City Mayor Chris Homer (third from right) and artist Happy Decay (Bjarni Wark) (third from left) with event coordinators and performers. Photo: Shellharbour City Council.
Warilla is about to turn up the flavour and the rhythm with Shellharbour City Council’s new Eco Eats and Beats Street Festival on 10 November.
Featuring food trucks, long table dining, live music, eco-friendly workshops, and an upcycled market along Beverley Avenue, this vibrant event will celebrate sustainability while transforming Warilla Town Centre into a lively hub of community and culture.
Shellharbour City Mayor Chris Homer said he was looking forward to seeing Warilla streets come to life.
“This event is a great way to showcase our commitment to not just sustainability but to our town centres and making them a vibrant and exciting place to be,” he said.
“This festival is a fantastic opportunity for our community to enjoy fun activities, live music and learn how to include sustainable practices in their everyday lives.”
Attendees at the Sunday event can get involved in nature craft to learn about Australia’s native bees, and make Blue Banded Bee wristbands and nature-inspired crafts.
Other hands-on activities will include Boomerang painting, crafting unique designs on recycled timber, transforming old magazines into beautiful paper bead creations, and attendees upcycling their own items using sustainable dyes at the tie-dying workshop.
Mount Warrigal artist Stephanie Quirk will lead a community art project, guiding schoolchildren in designing flags that represent their heritage, all made from reused materials.
Audiences will be treated to performances from talents like Lolo Lovina and the much-loved Aussie kids’ band, The Vegetable Plot, on the main stage.
Two busking stations will also fill the air with music, featuring Illawarra artists such as Jack Willis and Georgie Lyons, along with theatrical performers roaming the event, adding another element of culture to the day.
Street artist and digital illustrator Happy Decay will be creating a vibrant mural within the festival zone, in the theme of sustainability and the natural environment.
Happy Decay artist Bjarni Wark helped transform Shellharbour’s waste fleet from mundane into something extraordinary with his artworks featuring a host of charming characters in the ‘Waste, Let’s Get it Sorted’ campaign this year.
The festival is funded by the NSW Government’s Open Streets Program, a program which supports councils to temporarily close streets to vehicles and open them up to people with activations that help inject vibrancy into streets.
Minister for Roads, Arts, Music and the Night-Time Economy, Jobs and Tourism John Graham said the Open Streets Program was about temporarily transforming main streets into vibrant and welcoming public event spaces.
“Too often our main streets are something we drive through, rather than drive to,” Mr Graham said.
“Our streets are a critical part of our public and social infrastructure. Great streets make great towns and centres and reflect the local community and culture.”
He said the colour and diversity of its 130 events celebrated the unique personality of each town or suburb.
“This is what our vibrancy agenda is all about, backing locals to create events and entertainment that works for their local community.”
Learn more about the Eco Eats and Beats Street Festival or pre-register for one of the workshops on Sunday 10 November from 10 am to 2 pm at Beverley Avenue, Warilla.
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