Website launch signals 20 weeks until Jumpers & Jazz

With exactly 20 weeks until 2012’s Jumpers & Jazz in July festival, organisers are in full swing with preparations for the 10 day program of events that celebrate all that is wonderful about winter.
Warwick Tourism & Events chief executive officer Tracy Vellacott said that both she and Warwick Art Gallery director Karina Devine were excited to begin event preparations by showing off the event’s new website.
“We were very fortunate to secure Events Queensland funding and Virtual Shout has produced a visual platform for the festival that is as quirky and colourful as the event itself,” Mrs Vellacott said.
“We are hoping to drive a lot more traffic to our new website, which in turn will see greater numbers of visitors and locals attend specific Jumpers & Jazz events within the region,” she said.
The art gallery team is working through tree allocations and bookings are now being taken for their program of festival workshops.
Ms Devine said that this year’s offerings range from Monster Factory where participants will explore the cute world of amigurumi, to creating Teapot Jumpers with renowned textile artist, Loani Prior.
“We also have fabric painting and printing workshops, as well as a ‘Rhapsody in Velvet’ and ‘Bohemian Baubles’ workshop,” she said.
The gallery will also offer a two day portrait workshop with Mark Crocker.
On the festival side, Mrs Vellacott said that plans were humming along on the first Sunday’s car event, the second Saturday’s Street Party and the Sunday Picnic in the Park.
“What we really want to see now is community members get involved through the Street Party committee or perhaps through volunteering at an event,” she said.
“It was very exciting last year to work with such an enthusiastic group of people and business owners who were committed to seeing the festival succeed. A great deal of feedback came from our meetings on things like the street closure, the positioning of the stage, the variety of entertainment and suggestions were also made on other possible improvements to the festival.”
Mrs Vellacott has called on interested community stakeholders to come along to the first meeting of the Street Party committee, to be held in the Warwick Art Gallery at 5.30pm on Tuesday.
To RSVP or obtain more information on the 2012 Jumpers & Jazz Festival, contact Warwick Tourism & Events on (07) 4661 9073 or email admin@warwickevents.com