Bumper crowd tipped for festival Flexing mussels

Andrew Mathieson
ORGANISERS of Portarlington’s mussel festival fear tomorrow’s event could get too big.
Crowd estimates from the Department of Primary Industries of between 15,000 to 20,000 surpassed expectations by more than double at its inaugural festival last year.
Festival organiser Jenny Macaulay is aware with a further increase in crowd numbers this year the event could become a victim of its own success.
“I hope it’s not bigger (this year),” she said.
“It would become difficult to handle then.
“We need to keep it fairly contained.
“It’s not a market crowd – it attracts more wine and food lovers.”
The Port Arts Network has pushed for greater “local quality produce” to include a stronger emphasis on mussels, with a visual presence among Portarlington’s restaurants, Ms Macaulay said.
It would also strongly feature local wines, olive oils, cheese and new Bellarine-brewed beers, she said.
“We want to keep it a local community-based festival and we want to see it kept that way,” she said.
“Obviously the mussel growers are a fairly important part of it.”
Six mussel operators are supporting Portarlington’s second festival.
Producer Lance Wiffen said the day was worth at least $20,000 in extra sales to the industry.
Last year operators had to send three additional boats to keep up with demand, he said.
But still Mr Wiffen believed the festival was bigger than the 5000kgs of discounted mussels expected to be sold off the pier.
“It’s would be very difficult to quantify how much it’s worth, really, because it’s really an awareness thing,” Mr Wiffen said.
“There’s a lot more interest in the industry overall.
“It wasn’t the mussel industry that put this together – we are just the recipients and we get a lot of advantage out of it.”
Plans are afloat this year for a local charter boat to take visitors out to the mussel beds while cooking mussels on board.