Agfest is a renowned annual agricultural field day held in the Australian state of

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

. It was first held in 1983 and is run by the Rural Youth Organisation of Tasmania with profits assisting Tasmania Rural Counselling. It has grown to the state's largest single event and attracts up to 70,000 visitors during three days in May each year at the site in rural Carrick. The event was first held at Symmons Plains, near

Perth, Tasmania Perth is a town in the Australian state of Tasmania. It lies south of Launceston, on the Midland Highway. The town had a population of 2,965 at the 2016 census, and is part of the Northern Midlands Council. Like nearby Longford, Perth is ...

in 1982. It was soon recognised by the organising committee that a larger site was required. In 1986, they purchased land on Oaks Road, Carrick from the Paterson family. The land had originally been part of "Oaks Estate" belonging to Thomas Haydock Reibey, father to Premier of Tasmania

Thomas Reibey Thomas Reibey (24 September 1821 – 10 February 1912) was an Australian politician and Premier of Tasmania from 20 July 1876 until 9 August 1877. Reiby was born in Hadspen, Van Diemen's Land, (now Tasmania) the son of Thomas Haydock Reibey and ...

. The 229-acre (96-hectare) site was named "Quercus Rural Youth Park"; Quercus is the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

name for oak. The first Agfest field days on the new site ran from 7–9 May 1987.Greenhill, p.10 Up to A$25 million is contributed to the Tasmanian economy by Agfest. ; COVID-19 impact In 2020 Agfest was scheduled to start on 7 May. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Australia The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 January ...

the usual 3 day physical event was cancelled in March 2020. It was replaced by the 3 week 'Agfest 2020 in the Cloud' online event that ran from 7–28 May, receiving 1,010,000 page views and 45,600 unique visitors. The online platform was financed by a A$65,000 grant from the

Tasmanian Government The Tasmanian Government is the democratic administrative authority of the state of Tasmania, Australia. The leader of the party or coalition with the confidence of the House of Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of Tasmania, is invit ...

. Agfest 2021 included both physical events over 4 days (5–8 May), and an online component (8–15 May). COVID safety rules, an altered site layout and other steps were planned to help keep patrons safe. Tickets were only pre-sold online to allow

contact tracing In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying persons who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individua ...

Notes

References

External links

Agfest Homepage
Festivals in Tasmania Recurring events established in 1983 Agricultural shows in Australia {{Tasmania-stub