TABLELANDS
Maize Festival
Street Parade
Gala Ball
Queen & Charity Queen Competition
Special High Tea
Colouring & Photo Competitions
Celebrating Our Community Together
A festival for the Tablelands to experience a sense of community, fun and celebration
The Tablelands Maize Festival is a fantastic community celebration demonstrating collaboration and shared community passion.
Let’s get together in 2023 to celebrate and promote our community, encourage our youth, and acknowledge our local story through fun, safe, sustainable events for everyone.
Our Mission
To create a festival for the Tablelands to experience a sense of community, fun and celebration.
Foster and invest in our local youth and encourage their development and involvement in our community.
Keep the history book open and continue to write the story of The Maize Festival a testimony to the community spirit.
Create a platform that promotes collaboration between the business, not-for-profit, and young members of our community.
Since 1962
60 years of Celebrating Wet Tropics Farming
The “Harvest Festival” commenced in 1952 by the Atherton Tableland Maize Growers’ Association to celebrate their harvest. It was held at the Atherton Showgrounds. The community was invited to attend a picnic luncheon served at long tables laden with delicious food and novelty sports events.
This was followed by a night Harvest Ball all to celebrate the end of the maize and peanut harvest.
Today, the Maize Festival is run by an independent voluntary Committee of dedicated community members. The focus continues to be on farming in the tropics and sharing the story of Far North Queensland.
ARTICLE SOURCE
Cairns Post 8th May 1952
Our Story
The annual Maize Festival event is an eagerly anticipated feature on every Tablelander’s calendar and attendance has been enjoyed by multiple generations of families for the past five and a half decades. Our story began fifty-five years ago, in 1962, when the Atherton Branch of the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade held the first-ever Maize Festival to raise much-needed funds in the local Atherton Tablelands community and celebrate the annual Maize harvest.
Today, the Maize Festival is run by an independent voluntary Committee of dedicated community members. The focus continues to be on raising funds for important local charities and causes; the Committee is particularly passionate about enhancing the community’s and local business’ engagement and participation in this annual celebration.
The Maize Festival has also had a long history of enabling youth participation and, since our inception in 1962, the annual Maize Queen contest was a well known feature of the program of events. The once very popular contest provided a platform for young women to enhance their community involvement.
In a bold and exciting move to evolve and build on this, in 2018 the Maize Festival will feature a revamped and expanded platform to enable youth participation.