The Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale has received a lashing on social media after a ‘disappointing’ turnout to its beefed-up Australia Day festivities.
With the City of Armadale having to cancel its beloved Oz Day festival and fireworks this year due to the Metronet works, the SJ Shire took the opportunity to divert funds from other planned local music events to put on its own live music festival.
But the shire’s Facebook event listing attracted less than 100 interactions, with only 20 confirming they’d be going.
A post shared on a local community page commended the shire on a ‘fantastic’ event, but chided the community for not supporting it with their presence.
Photos attached showed a sparsely-populated Briggs Park oval for the headline act – the Rising Sun tribute to Cold Chisel and Jimmy Barnes.
The post attracted hundreds of comments from locals claiming they’d heard nothing about the event’s existence.
“Was looking for somewhere to take the kids, didn’t even know it was on,” Ash said.
“Someone mentioned it to me … I tried to search for info but couldn’t find anything,” Shelly said.
“Didn’t know anything about it being on until too late to attend,” Sherree said.
“I’d have loved to have come but like most people I wasn’t aware,” Tina said.
“We were doing Google searches earlier today to see what was on locally, nothing came up,” Bonnie said.
“Didn’t hear nothing about it. Looks like an expensive waste of money by SJ Shire,” Broady said.
The shire said a total of $40,000 was spent putting on the SJ Sounds of Summer Australia Day event, which featured multiple live music acts, a free face painting and glitter station, food trucks and roaming entertainment.
The Rotary Club and SJ Lions Club were also invited to run a sausage sizzle, they said.
Shire President Rob Coales said “about 1000 people” attended “which is in line with attendee numbers at previous Australia Day events run by the shire”.
One community member who did go called the event ‘boring’.
“We went, looked and left,” Samantha said. “No rides, no bouncy castles … a very few food trucks, all the seating was out in the sun with no shade, no stalls at all for local businesses. It was very poorly managed.”
Erryn suggested including more community activities like sack races, tug-of-war, or ball games.
And quite a few community members suggested the shire work on its promotion of future events.
President Coales said beyond Facebook and this newspaper, the shire advertised the event “through multiple channels” including “in our 24/25 major events calendar which was circulated locally and mailed to all shire households”.
“The event was also advertised on the shire website, all January editions of our weekly newsletter SJ Matters which goes to almost 2000 subscribers, and our Out and About school holidays newsletter which goes to more than 2300 subscribers,” he said.
“In addition, we distributed print flyers to local businesses and shire facilities, and ran radio ads on local stations, including 97.3 Coast FM and 91.7 The Wave, in the lead up to the event.”
Nicole said Facebook marketing “is dead … unless you are willing to give Meta huge dollars”.
Bel said the shire’s website was ‘clunky’ and suggested a digital sign on the South Western Highway, pole wraps or flags, or a community-wide letter drop would have been good ideas to get the message out to more people.
“We continually review our marketing strategies to ensure we reach as many community members as possible,” President Coales said.
“We encourage residents to follow the shire’s Facebook page and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, so they receive the latest shire news and information direct to their inbox.”
President Coales said the shire would decide whether to put on another Australia Day event “as part of the development of the shire’s 2025/26 Budget”.
