MEDIA RELEASE

Weather Forces Heartbreaking Postponement of the Goodna Jacaranda Festival

Statement from Mathew Taylor, President, Goodna Jacaranda Festival

It is with enormous disappointment that I announce that we have made the very difficult decision to postpone the 2026 Goodna Jacaranda Festival due to the severe weather conditions affecting our preparations this week.

The Goodna Jacaranda Festival will now return on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 October 2027.

There is no easy way to make a decision like this.

For the people who attend the Festival, it is two wonderful days in October. For those of us behind the scenes, it represents months and months of planning, meetings, phone calls, emails, site visits, paperwork, problem solving and, particularly over these final weeks, some incredibly long days.

Our volunteers have contributed countless hours because they believe in what the Goodna Jacaranda Festival means to our community. To get this close and then have circumstances outside our control force us to postpone is genuinely heartbreaking.

I am incredibly proud of every single one of them.

So Much to Be Proud Of

One of the things that makes this decision particularly difficult is knowing just how much work has gone into building some fantastic new and returning parts of this year’s Festival.

I want to particularly thank Christine Dewar for the extraordinary amount of work she has put into building Quest for Talent.

Quest for Talent has become something really special. It gives performers an opportunity to step onto the Jacaranda stage, showcase what they can do and be part of something much bigger. We had been really looking forward to seeing this year’s contestants perform, and their absence from the stage will be sorely felt.

To everyone who entered and prepared to perform, this isn’t goodbye. We want to see you on that stage in 2027.

I also want to sincerely thank Matthew Chambers for the work he has put into our Saturday Schools Program. Bringing our local schools and young people into the Festival is an important part of keeping Jacaranda connected to the community it represents, and Matthew has put an enormous amount of work into making that happen.

And a huge thank you must go to Lisa Schubert for everything she has done to stage Jacaranda Jams, our Festival’s own Battle of the Bands.

There was so much excitement around Jacaranda Jams, and Lisa has worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to bring it together. We were looking forward to seeing the bands take to the stage and bring another fantastic element of live entertainment to the Festival.

The work Christine, Matthew and Lisa have put in has not been wasted. We will carry that energy, those ideas and that enthusiasm forward as we prepare for 2027.

I also want to extend a very special thank you to the wonderful people who volunteered their time and expertise to judge our competitions. Our Quest for Talent judges, Seiko Wong, Kerryn Thorne and Amy Winner, had generously agreed to help encourage and recognise our performers, and I am incredibly grateful for their support. Likewise, a huge thank you to Tony Worsley and Anthony Marulanda-Carter, who were to judge Jacaranda Jams, our Battle of the Bands. Both bring extensive professional performance and music industry experience, and we were incredibly fortunate to have them volunteering their time for our emerging musicians. To all five of our judges, thank you for being willing to give your time and experience to our performers and to the Goodna Jacaranda Festival. We were genuinely looking forward to having you with us, and I sincerely hope we can welcome you all back when we bring these competitions to the stage in 2027.

I also want to give a thank you to Kate Miller from Lo Key Agency for the enormous amount of work she has put into the Festival. Kate’s commitment, energy and willingness to help bring everything together has been greatly appreciated. So much work happens behind the scenes to stage an event like this, and I am genuinely grateful to Kate for everything she has contributed.

To Our Sponsors, Thank You

I also want to acknowledge our amazing sponsors.

Community events like the Goodna Jacaranda Festival simply cannot happen without businesses and organisations prepared to get behind them.

Our sponsors haven’t just put their names on signs. They have backed our Festival and our community, and we are enormously grateful for their generosity and confidence in us.

Their support will continue with us into 2027, and we look forward to continuing to recognise the businesses and organisations that have stood beside the Goodna Jacaranda Festival.

I would particularly like to acknowledge Ipswich City Council for its support of the Festival.

We greatly value our relationship with Council and look forward to working with them as we regroup and begin the process of delivering the postponed Goodna Jacaranda Festival in October 2027.

An Enormous Event to Put Together

The reality is that staging an event of this size is a significant undertaking, not only in volunteer hours and logistics, but financially as well.

By the time Festival week arrives, substantial commitments have already been made across infrastructure, entertainment, equipment and services.

I therefore want to make special mention of those vendors and suppliers who, following our decision to postpone, have worked with us and supported the Festival by agreeing to return deposit payments.

Those gestures matter enormously to a community event like ours, and we are extremely grateful for the understanding and goodwill being shown to us during what is a very difficult situation.

This Is a Postponement, Not the End

Right now, there are a lot of disappointed people.

I’m one of them.

But I also know the character of the people behind this Festival.

We will take a breath, regroup and then get back to work.

To our volunteers, sponsors, performers, schools, competitors, vendors, suppliers, community organisations and everyone who had planned to join us, thank you.

Thank you for the hours you’ve contributed. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your encouragement. And most importantly, thank you for believing in the Goodna Jacaranda Festival.

We would much rather be welcoming everyone to Goodna this week. Unfortunately, the weather has had other ideas.

So instead, we’ll turn our attention to making 29 and 30 October 2027 something very special.

The jacarandas will bloom again, the stages will come alive again, and Goodna will have its Festival again.

We’ll see you in 2027.

Mathew Taylor
President
Goodna Jacaranda Festival

Media Release Ends