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2020 Weipa Fishing Classic – a lesson in COVID innovation
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were busy, the commu- nity still spent money on food and refresh- ments and our sponsors were given heaps of air time. We had over 500 groups watching on Fa- cebook on Friday night with one group report- edly in Singapore!
and increase their pro- motion, yet still make a profit. We had already been playing around with a few ideas of us- ing our own presenters, doing our own video then stitching some- thing together at the end.
There’s obviously a blueprint here for oth- er community fishing competitions to follow.
We had a bit of a chat around options we’d been discussing individually around still holding the fish- ing event but, given the COVID-19 restrictions, felt we wouldn’t need to worry about any of the event management and all that sort of stuff, just host the fishing side of things.
DD: The major appeal of the Classic is usu- ally centred around 30 prize draws over three nights that attract over 2000 ticket sales. Did you stick with that scale of things this year?
DD: Sounds like the 2020 Weipa Fishing Classic exceeded all expectations!
It’s a wonderful exam- ple of how important being able to engage in recreational fishing is to our communities, particularly those out- side of the big cities – and the resourcefulness of the people who love to wet a line.
DD: So you took the opportunity to redesign the entire event! That’s a massive undertaking. What was your time frame?
Huge congratulations must go to the small voluntary committee that ultimately came up with this remarkable
Recreational fishing, it seems, is more than just trying to catch a fish!
our usual media and entertainment special- ists the Beserk Broth- ers, James the digital hardware expert, and Khory to front the show.
event in these far from normal times.
AS: We normally get alotofoutoftown visitors who come up especially for the event, but realised this was not going to happen and that it would be a majority of com- munity members only. Therefore, the commit- tee opted to reduce the draws to 15 in the hope of selling around 1500 tickets. There would still be the major prize of a boat package and we managed to get a smaller rig for the run- ner up. Plus, a $10,000 cash prize for the first time ever.
AS: It sure did Dave and we will be contrib- uting most of the money raised to improving our showground, which is a site we used for the first time this year.
In these days of grow- ing mental health con- cerns, events such as these inject massive amounts of positivity into the mix.
production sequence that would cut between picking the draw num- bers and promoting our sponsors, then chat- ting with the winners when they phoned in to follow up with their tickets. We learned a lot from Friday night and by Sunday, were pacing the proceedings much more efficiently. There were two outlets for our streaming, via our Facebook page for those watching at home and a com- mercial feed to places such as the Albatross Bay Resort, and bowls and golf clubs where they had the event on a big screen. So the promotion went many ways, the pub and clubs
The smaller boat/motor/trailer prize will be enjoyed by its new owner.
The Classic always sees kids getting involved and making use of the great shing the area has to offer.
Bush ’n Beach Fishing, January 2021 – Page 71
AS: We rescheduled the Classic for the weekend of October 30 to November 1, which gave us just over two months. There was an environmental scientist in town, Khory Han- cock, who had a large media following via his website and Instagram – we approached him about being MC. He was so enthusiastic, he joined the committee. Initially, we were going to use our phones and Facebook to stream the event but when we were arranging to get our competition shirts printed in Cairns, our contact Scotty men- tioned he was now in- volved in video stream- ing, which prompted a very excited conversa- tion around how we might be able to do things on a more com- mercial platform. From there, a team was put together that included www.bnbfishing.com.au
DD: And how did this pan out?
AS: In the end we sold around 1600 tickets, distributed 84 prizes in the prize draw and ran- dom giveaways, plus 72 rod and reel packages for the species category winners, ran a monster raffle, in total over $130,000 worth.
DD: Wow, that’s fan- tastic! How did the live streaming of the weigh- ins, draws and presen- tations work out?
AS: Even with the expertise we had as- sembled, it was still a seat of the pants setup! We did originally con- sider pre-recording the opening, the introduc- tion to country for in- stance, but in the end we developed a loose