Clear your schedule, rethink your feed and prepare to fight your colleagues for the leave dates: Noosa Eat & Drink Festival 2021 is officially a goer, praise the festival gods.

That’s right, everyone’s favourite beachside bacchanal has just been given the green light, and the 2021 version has undergone one heck of an après-iso glo up.

It’s welcome news for those of us who were shook, salty, devo and/or all of the above when the May 2020 festival dates were cancelled courtesy of COVID-19 (aka the pandemic that just keeps on taking.)

The annual four-day event in May – which normally attracts a 10,000-strong gourmet gathering to the beachside town – has been completely reimagined as a year-long series of intimate gourmet events. Dreams = realised.

The cornucopia of completely COVID-appropriate celebrations will showcase the very best food, drinks and produce that the Noosa region has to offer.

Think vin, gin, coffee, kombucha, craft brews and BBQs, along with plenty of appropriately socially distanced revelry and sweet gram-worthy goodness. Translation? You now have an excuse to go there all the time. 

Dates and full details of the event schedule are yet to be released, but you can expect some pretty epic experiences like culinary masterclasses, high-profile restaurant takeovers, tastings, demonstrations and live events.

It’s the little ray of sweet sunshine state, erm, sunshine, that we all need right now. Stay tuned for a full program and details of the first event, which is scheduled for late 2020.

delicious. Editorial Director and fellow Noosa obsessive Kerrie McCallum said, “We are excited at the possibility of a new-look festival and how Noosa is adapting so we can all celebrate but stay safe in these new times.”

For updates, stalk the festival feed at @noosaeatdrink and snag inbox updates at www.noosaeatdrink.com.au