There have been 13 successful Oz Fests so far - in Sydney, (twice) Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart Tasmania, Cairns Queensland, Adelaide South Australia, Darwin Northern Territory, Canberra in the ACT, Perth Western Australia, Alice Springs and Ayers Rock/Uluru – “The Red Centre” in 2014, New Zealand in 2015 and the Gold Coast in 2016

Democracy rules supreme with all Oz Fest’s, and after several group emails with Ozstamps, Itsalongwaydown, Oz Beachbabe, serfty, JessicaTam, Mwenenzi and with good input from some locals, Newcastle, New South Wales has been chosen.

The location of which, for the benefit of our overseas members is shown in the map linked– about 2 hours or so north of Sydney by road or train. The airport NTL is served by several airlines from SYD, MEL, OOL, BNE and regional NSW.



The May USA 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 13 x Oz Fests. Around half the attendees are US based at each Oz Fest.

That public holiday in the USA is Monday May 29, 2017. Remember if you LEAVE Australia on afternoon of Monday May 29, you ARRIVE back in the USA also early morning on Monday May 29.

Oz Fest 05 Hobart (2008) had 40 members signed up - pretty amazing seeing only one attending was a local, Cairns (2009) saw 59 turning up - just beating out by 1 the then previous record attendance of any Oz Fest 02 (2005) in Sydney - 58 attendees. Adelaide (2010) was a little too big, with 75 attendees, but not all of whom were active FT'ers, causing some issues. The slightly less accessible Darwin (2011) kept numbers down to previous sorts of levels - 44. Canberra (2012) had 51 Platinums show up. Perth (2013) had a surprisingly large number of Platinums - 59 (an equal record number of attendees). Pretty amazing given the cost and distance of attending for most. Oz Fest in the The Red Centre (2014) attracted a few less Platinums, as airline access was very limited, and costs very high, but the 37 FT'ers that took this reality on board. Lots of them Americans - enjoyed the weekend, and were true Oz Festers, to get there and back. Oz Fest 12 (2015) right up in the Bay Of Islands of New Zealand got a very respectable 41 attendees, after several last minute cancellations, and despite the rather remote location chosen for the event. Oz Fest 13 Gold Coast (2016) had 44 attendees. With airlines flying in to OOL direct from main Au airports and it was a very short drive/train from Brisbane - only a hour or so south.

The Oz Fest threads here each have attracted between 35,000 and 57,000 page views - pretty outstanding records for any FT Do’s anywhere. Each Oz Fest thread has ran to 500+ posts. Oz Fest 10 Perth 2013 had near 50,000 page views, and 825 posts, so interest stayed high. The Red Centre had even more posts – about 900 of them, Oz Fest 12 in 2015 in NZ had way over 50,000 page views.

A common access account for the ad-hoc organising committee titled “Oz Fest (OzFest Organisers)” was approved by the Flyertalk Community Director, and the early informational posts here in this thread will show as that account, so they can be edited at will by those involved.

Our ad-hoc Committee will be tracking attendees, and hotels, and flights, and activity sign ups etc in these early posts. These are incredibly time consuming to keep updated, and all attendees owe them a huge vote of thanks. Hopefully we can once again call on the falconea’s to be name tag/table tag supremos, and we are well on our way!

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.

Tons of time no matter where you live in the USA, to get back home, unpack, have an early night, and get organised for a day at the office next day etc

Pre-booking internal flights and hotels price in $A right now allows Americans to lock in that historic low rate. Any British attendees, the same advice applies – Sterling has strengthened near 10% in recent times. Depends if you are a gambler on it going lower - or not!

The weather for the past 13 Oz Fests has been in general, superb and sunny. Despite June 1st , being our official Winter start date. Even in Tasmania our most southern city, we were truly blessed with unusually nice weather. We all thought Canberra and Hobart would be a weather challenge for sure, but the Saturday and Sunday gave quite perfect weather. Even NZ offered amenable weather.

As usual, may also turn out to be a very long thread.

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