A beloved three day festival in a local seaside town is back this month with a name change and a new focus after a five year hiatus.


Previously The Bay Escape, the newly named Bay Festival will be back on February 21-24 for the first time since 2020 with a fresh family friendly focus.


The much anticipated event was set to return last year but the committee made the tough decision to postpone the celebration due to conflicting regional events, time constraints and community feedback.


The main event day on Saturday, February 22 promises to be a fun-filled day of food, activities, and entertainment along the picturesque Port MacDonnell foreshore featuring the internationally renowned Snuff Puppets, Junkyard Beats, Circus Elements and of course, Jay the Cray.


The Bay Festival coordinator Mary Mason said the event is a reinvention of the annual festival hosted in Port MacDonnell during the summer.


“We decided after talking to our funders the best way forward was to design an event that was sustainable and would actually go on for many years,” she said.


“I cannot see why it would not continue and bearing in mind that times change so we are always morphing the event to meet attendees’ expectations and broader interests.


“We had actually planned to do it (last year) but discovered the amount of work required just to establish this event was far greater than we had realised so we decided to do it properly rather than just rush into it.


“We are an authentic fishing town on the beach and we just wanted to work with what we have got and be authentically Port MacDonnell.


“There is some really great buzz around it at the moment, we are expecting some really great attendance this year because we have so many great acts and so much vibrant activity.”


The Bay Festival is the inaugural event to be held on the grounds of the Waterfront Stage 2 project since its completion by the Grant District Council in 2021.


“The actual festival space is adjacent to the playground but we are making it so kids can play on the playground as well. We are basically integrating the public spaces with the festival itself so that’s exciting,” Ms Mason said.


“The other thing we are doing which is actually adjacent to the festival space is we’re doing the ‘Under the Pines Market’ and we’re closing off the street so that it becomes a pedestrian safe zone.


“It is just full on activity the whole day and we very specifically designed it that way.


“It is really important to us to have as much local content and possible and really pushing to support young musicians to give them an opportunity to perform.”


Ms Mason said following the closure of the licensed event at 6pm, there will be acoustic music and a light show in the street.


“When the sun goes down the solar lights will come on and we are starting off small this year but it is something we want to build into an event that people will come down to every single year,” she said.


“This is just us dipping our toes into bigger and more creative programs for the following years.”