The Regional Event Fund was established in 1996. The program is a mechanism to grow regional visitation by assisting events that contribute to the unique character regional NSW to market themselves to visitors from outside of their Local Government Area.
Destination NSW manages the fund and provides support to regional events through three streams:
Incubator Event stream: New events in their first or second years can receive up to $20,000 of seed funding to support activities that are likely to establish an event as a driver of visitation.
Flagship Event stream: Emerging events running for over two years can receive grants of $20,000 to increase their profile and encourage visitation. Events that have already received the maximum of three annual grants will be eligible for grants of $30,000 over three years.
Event Development stream: Established and proven events that have previously received and completed triennial funding through the Flagship Event stream can receive grants of up to $50,000 to support growth initiatives in the event’s strategic plan.
The grants offered through the Regional Event Fund identify investment in regional events as key to growing the NSW regional visitor economy. Since its establishment the Regional Event Fund has distributed more than $14 million to more than 450 events.