Friday 22 February 2008

HISTORY, MUSIC & FUN! Easter - Friday 21 to Sunday 23 March Huge Festival Treasure Hunt returns: $2000 Golden Egg up for grabs at Golden Horseshoes

The Golden Horseshoes Festival, one of the most popular annual events in regional Victoria, returns to Beechworth in exactly one month today, from Good Friday 21 to Easter Sunday 23 March.

With its 2008 theme of History, Music & Fun! the packed program, announced today by Golden Horseshoes Festival Committee Chairman, Leo Nette, includes a host of events for all ages across the Easter weekend, capped by the wildly popular Hunt for the Golden Egg on Easter Sunday.

In a new twist this year fortune hunters will turn super-sleuth as they search for clues on a special treasure map of the streets of Beechworth. The first correct entry drawn at 2pm on Easter Sunday will win the sensational grand prize donated by Beechworth Gold of an egg encased in $2000 of gold.

Other highlights of the 2008 program include:
• Free performances by the sensational Australian Youth Band, an American-style marching band which has appeared around Australia and overseas, including the Beijing International Youth Festival. AYB members will be among the 2008-strong youth band being formed worldwide to perform at the Beijing Olympics in August this year.
• The Grand Parade, featuring special guest commentators, comedian John Walker and entertainer, Lazy Harry and featuring the inaugural Beechworth Bakery Perpetual Trophy for Best Float.
• A chance for the whole family to Discover Museum Victoria. This fantastic interactive display includes ancient fossils, dinosaur bones, exhibits from the Museum’s natural history collection as well as the real Federation Hand Bells created to mark the centenary of Federation in Victoria.
• The Easter Quilt Shows featuring dozens of exquisite modern and antique quilts
• An outdoor food court in Camp Street, this year extended to all day Saturday and Sunday
• Art Alley ‘plein air’ exhibition featuring work from artists of the four Indigo shire Arts Councils of Beechworth, Rutherglen, Yackandandah and Chiltern.
• Free outdoor stage performances by a host of talent including the irresistible rhythms of Melbourne-based South American band, Inca Marka

The 2008 program will also see the return of perennial favourites including Daniel Cameron’s famous ride through Beechworth on a horse shod with golden shoes, the huge Good Friday Fun Run and the Easter Bunny appearing on Easter Sunday laden with free chocolate eggs for children.

This year for the first time, an incorporated community committee has taken on responsibility for planning and producing the Beechworth Golden Horseshoes Festival. Mr Nette said today the event was well on track to be even bigger and better than the highly successful Festival of 2007 which attracted estimated crowds of 20,000.

Festival Chairman, Leo Nette is available for interview, phone (03) 5728-1873 or
0429 606 439. To obtain hi-res images please contact Sue Couttie at Indigo Shire, phone (03) 5728 8061 or email scouttie@indigoshire.vic.gov.au

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