ozstamps

There have been 7 successful OzFests so far - in Sydney, (twice) Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart Tasmania, Cairns Queensland - and Adelaide South Australia a few weeks back.

They are one of the most heavily attended of any of the annual FT Doos anywhere. Indeed there are near no other annual FT Doos outside the USA that have chalked up 8 years running AFAIK.

Polling of FT'ers on the Adelaide thread, and via many private emails seems to have decided that the hands down winner for the 200ELEVEN venue should be DARWIN - the capital city of the Northern Territory.

The location of which, for the benefit of our overseas members is shown below - right up the centre top - near East Timor.


Democracy rules supreme with all OzFest’s, and after some unofficial polling, and emails with Itsalongwaydown who also agrees on DRW, and several other regular attendees, I have started this thread today to officially kick off OzFest #8.

Hobart had 40 members signed up - pretty amazing seeing only one attending was a local, Cairns saw 59 turning up – just beating out by 1 the previous record attendance of any OzFest - number #2 in Sydney - 58 attendees.

Adelaide was a little too big, with 75 attendees, not all of whom were active FT'ers, and the slightly less accessible Darwin will probably keep numbers down to previous sort of levels. Which will not be a minus at all in my view.

The "OzFest #5" thread had about 50,000 page views, and attracted well over 1,000 posts, and set a view record for a FT Doo thread.

The “OzFest #6” got very near that, with about 40,000 page views and over 1,200 posts – a record number.

Only to be outdone by Adelaide OzFest #7 with 55,000 page views, and over 1,300 posts.

MargoZ and I will certainly be among the first confirmed starters to attend, barring any calamities, and as with all the other Oz Fests, I'll be pleased to assist where I can, and if required.

Itsalongwaydown and I have been in contact, and Bill and Sue are also certain starters for DRW. Bill as always has offered to lend a hand in the planning and cat herding, that is associated with these large events.

We are extra lucky with Darwin as ozbeachbabe (Sarah) is based there, and works in a travel related area. Sarah and I had in depth discussions in Adelaide, and she seems very keen to help out, and has a number of things planned already.

Other volunteers will I am sure add links to activities and attendees in the next few posts, and Sarah contacted me yesterday with a number of things she has planned.

Mwenenzi has offered really invaluable back-up to Bill and I and others helping organise all the previous Ozfests, and I feel sure he’ll be able to assist again - he will "place-marker" several early posts to add to later.

Mwenenzi will hopefully be tracking attendees etc via his legendary and super detailed Excel spread sheets, and hopefully he can again join us in person for this one.

And just as important are Mwenenzi’ s placefinder posts adding new attendees as they are confirmed. And linking to who was doing what, and when, etc. These are incredibly time consuming to keep updated, and all attendees owe him a huge vote of thanks.

Serfty looks to be the “king of airline movements” for attendees to and from, and his most useful link to that aspect for Cairns and Adelaide helped lots of members buddy up for Cabs etc, and book seats together, and cut costs.

I have little doubt Ross and Jenny will also be among the early sign ons - Indeed a little birdie told me they have their flights booked ALREADY!

And hopefully we can once again call on the falconea’s to be name tag supremos, and we are well on our way!

There are a VERY limited range of ‘major’ brand Hotels in DRW ... I'll let others expand on that aspect. That is a bit of an issue.

Having ONE central hotel location that most folks use, is a VERY large plus I always feel.

And it gives the organisers some leverage to extract a great group booking deal, instead of 50 FT’ers being like Brown’s cows and all doing their own thing.

The May "Memorial Day" weekend seems very popular with USA based Flyer-talkers, and that is the weekend that was most favoured by far. We have bowed to that request and again chosen that weekend - as we have for all other OzFests. Around half the attendees are US based each OzFest.

That public holiday in the USA is Monday May 30, 2011. Remember if you LEAVE Sydney on the afternoon of Monday May 30, you ARRIVE back in the USA also on the morning of Monday May 30. Tons of time to get back home, unpack, have an early night and get organised for a day at the office next day etc.

Mid afternoon is the flight time back for United, who have direct daily flights from SYD to the west coast (to both LAX and SFO) ex Sydney.

Near all USA attendees fly UA to OzFests to either MEL or SYD. In many of the last few years there have been Double EQM deals announced for May, to the enormous joy and delight of those who had already booked!

Sarah or Ross and others will I am sure we able to update members on air access to Darwin and the plusses and minuses of them.

QFWP posted he will be overseas in May with the family, and as there will it seems, be very long full day bus trips, and/or Kakadu Yellow River cruises etc, it might not have been a great weekend for young infants anyway. Just in case they get bored or irritable on long days - so ideally this year, like most FT weekend major events worldwide, attendees will all be adult members of FT.

The weather for the past 7 "Oz Fests" has been in general, superb and sunny. Despite June 1 - a few days later, being our official Winter start date. Even in Tasmania our most southern city, we were truly blessed with unusually nice weather.

Darwin luckily is nearly equatorial, and weather should be great .. Sarah can advise further on that! So it should be a very tolerable time to visit. ^

I get the feeling this as usual, may also turn out to be a very long thread.

Glen