From 1959 until now: Geraldton’s Sunshine Festival continues as WA’s longest running regional festival

Everyone has a memory of the Sunshine Festival and, although much has changed in the past six decades, the Geraldton event has been a common thread between generations. The annual Sunshine Festival has been around since 1959, originally created to focus attention on the tourism activities Geraldton has to offer, while advertising the town as the “most climatic all-year-round holiday resort” in WA. COVID put a stop to the festivities in 2019, but WA’s longest running regional festival is set to make its return in October this year. A jam-packed week of family-friendly events, activities and live music at Stow Gardens is what’s usually in store. Though there are no concrete plans yet, festival chairman Ian Fisher said he hoped it would be “bigger and better” than the rest. For many years, a popular event in the festival was crowning a “Sunshine Festival Queen”. In 1958, the competition was open to all unmarried women older than 17 living within Greater Geraldton, Chapman Valley and Northampton. The contestants were only allowed to wear evening or street dresses and the judging was based on appearance, speech, deportment and general knowledge. These days, there’s a mixture of men’s and children’s beauty pageants. Flying Pageants were held in the 1960s by the Royal Aero Club and consisted of loops, spins, rolls, dives and joy rides at Geraldton Airport. Fishing competitions were a sure winner for the blokes, as they line fished along Back Beach to Durlacher Street aiming to catch the heaviest fish for a prize. Sandcastle competitions, pet parades, arts and crafts, and floats are all fun parts of the Sunshine Festival’s rich history. Mr Fisher said he looked forward to bringing back the more than 60-year-old event after COVID created uncertainty in previous years. “In actual fact it did get better and maybe we pulled the pin too early, but there was still a lot of precautions such as checking in, checking out and the two square metre rule,” he said. “When it first came out we didn’t want to be responsible for an outbreak. It was very unknown back in 2020 and we didn’t want to be responsible for 5000-6000 people getting COVID.” The committee will hold an AGM at the City Hive on Thursday, March 2 and urge everyone eager to participate to get involved and register their interest.