Ipswich Festival 2015 Highlights

The spectacular Ipswich Festival is back in 2015 bigger than ever! Packed with fantastic shows, events, parades and concerts to suit the whole family.

Fire on the River launches the festivities with a spectacular explosion of colours lighting up the night sky. Join us for an enthralling display of fireworks synchronised to a dedicated soundtrack that is sure to delight the whole family. This spectacular pyrotechnic display has become a festival favourite with a stunning showcase of the very best "feature" fireworks and fire canons.

Best vantage points are at Riverlink Shopping Centre and David Trumpy Bridge.

Date: Thursday April 16th @ 7pm
Location: Riverlink Shopping Centre, Upper Level, Ipswich Central

Parade of Light - Cheer on the cavalcade of our spirited community groups, classic cars, lively marching bands, local businesses, festival characters, schools, and energetic dancers.

For the first time, the Ipswich Festival Parade moves into the night creating high excitement and a colourful carnival atmosphere. Be amazed as giant, magical lanterns journey along Ipswich's inner city streets creating a night of spectacular surprises.

Themed "Our People, Our Culture", the parade celebrates Ipswich's rich history and diverse community and will be an impressive display that is sure to entertain. The annual parade is a must-see highlight of the festival.

Date: Saturday May 2nd
Location: Brisbane St - Between Waghorn and Bell St

Lunchtime Sessions - Revolutionise your lunchtime routine! Festival LunchTime Sessions feature five exciting days of free live entertainment in Ipswich City Mall. This is a FREE event!

Dates: April 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 29th, 30th
Location: Ipswich City Mall, Ipswich Central
Shows: See below

The Magic Parlour
A day of monumental magical mayhem! Two incredible shows so close up and interactive - they will delight and amaze you. The Super Steph Magic Show and Damien the Magician. Plus balloon art, live bunny and magical tricks galore. This one is for the kids as well as the young at heart.
Tuesday April 21st 11am - 1.30pm

The Romance of Strauss, Bach and Bluegrass
Lunch with over 20 musicians from the strings section of Ipswich City Orchestra. Come and be swept away to old Vienna with Strauss Waltzes played by the professional Orchestra's String section. Then get your hands clapping for some good old fashioned bluegrass with the Suzuki Students of Ipswich.
Wednesday April 22nd 11am - 1pm

That's Entertainment!
Let us take you on a journey of timeless music and history, with 'Back to Basics' recreating the era of the Andrew Sisters, followed by a mash of your favourite hit pop rock songs of the 70's, 80's, 90's and beyond with live band Shriners Park. Tea & light refreshments early or BYO lunch.
Thursday April 23rd 11am - 2pm

Big Band Brassy
Swing and sway to the smooth and brassy sounds of the amazing C17's Amberley Brass Band and the gold medal award winning Redbank Plains State High School Marching Band. Sit back and relax or dance to the beat of big band swing, classical, new world symphony, and so much more.
Wednesday April 29th 11am - 2pm

Swing it!
With a double scoop of comedy and a generous serving of musical mayhem the Swingin' Martinis belt out the best of Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin classics through to the Proclaimers via ABBA and Tom Jones - all fused together to bring you some good old high energy and cracking entertainment.
Thursday April 30th 12noon - 1pm

Night Time Sessions:
Latin Dance with Brazilian Soul
Join in the fun or opt in the free dance class when Brazilian Soul perform a variety of Latin dance styles, all authentic from South America.
Wednesday April 22nd 5pm - 6pm

SwingaBilly Ray
It's a revival of the golden age of swing jazz. Kick up you heels doing the lindy hop, the Charleston, St Louis shag, or shim sham and jitterbug - all this to the sounds of your favourite swing tunes from yesteryear. Everybody welcome. Free Swing Dance Class.
Thursday April 30th 5pm - 7.30pm


To view more Ipswich Festival highlights visit their official website: www.ipswichfestival.com.au/2015/browse.php?cat=1

Ipswich, where the sky’s the limit. Hot-air ballooning over Ipswich.

Hot-air ballooning over Ipswich, Queensland.

FIRE lights the sky in the pre-dawn of a Queensland day. Soon we are floating gently upwards, borne by a hot-air balloon above the heritage city of Ipswich.

Beyond the balloon gondola, the landscape wakes to the sun. The Great Dividing Range, in shades of grey and blue and green, shrouded in mist, rises in front of us and below us the narrow ribbon of the Bremer River cuts its way through the city. Sunlight catches on the brick and stone buildings of Queensland’s oldest provincial city, dotted with parks and gardens.

Before long we are flying over farmland and vineyards, drinking in the landscape from 550m while Floating Images chief pilot Graeme Day tends the burners and the wind takes us where it will.

On a two-day visit to Ipswich, I find myself in the air almost more often than on the ground, as I sample some of the activities that make the region an easy choice for a Brisbane getaway. Only 30 minutes’ drive from the Queensland capital, Ipswich is undergoing a renaissance that is seeing many of its heritage buildings put to modern use, with the undulating countryside of southeast Queensland’s Scenic Rim just minutes out of town.

In the city centre, the modern Metro Hotel International is the pick-up and drop-off point for ballooning and helicopter tours. Balloon rides finish with a champagne breakfast at the hotel’s Platform 9 restaurant.

At Ironbark Ridge vineyard, a mob of kangaroos, more than a dozen strong, stands stock still beside the driveway, alert but immobile as they watch us pass. We’ve arrived in rock-star style … by limousine transfer from Brisbane and then by helicopter, landing in a mown circle of grass on the edge of the vineyard.

“We also occasionally get a couple of koalas wandering through,” says winemaker Barry Hoffensetz, who planted the first vines on his property in 1983.

Ironbark Ridge is the oldest of about a dozen boutique wineries on the regular drop-in list of Captain Mike Jarvis’ Pterodactyl Helicopters tours. Soon we’re heading to the cellar door, a historic miner’s cottage that served as Hoffensetz’s surgery in Ipswich before he retired as a GP.

Tastings are waiting. Ironbark Ridge has 3.4ha under vine with mainly chardonnay, shiraz and grenache grapes, but smaller plantings of boutique varieties such as marsanne, rousanne, viognier, dolcetto, verdelho and nebioli. All the vines are hand-planted and the grapes are hand-picked.

It has not always been easy. “We had 10 to 12 years of drought, then an abundance of rain at the wrong time in the past four years,” says Hoffensetz.

But he and his wife, Jan, and others in the region, have persevered and the heli-tours have helped. Pterodactyl Helicopters is one of several businesses boosting Ipswich’s tourism industry beyond its well-known heritage attractions.

At the second of two vineyards on our combo-tour from Pterodactyl’s wine and pub tours, Normanby Wines owner Mick Hall extends a grape-stained hand in welcome to his “best backyard in the world”.

Hall came to Australia five decades ago, from England, and now declares the nearby village of Harrisville “the hub of the universe”. He and his wife Jenny have lived there since 1972 and planted their first vines in 1999. They have seven varieties of grape on 3ha of their 66ha property. I’m intrigued by wine names I’ve never heard before: veraz (a blend of verdelho and shiraz) and durif. Hall says Normanby Wines is one of the few Queensland vineyards to produce durif, a rich dark red wine.

A few minutes’ flight away — and about 30km from Ipswich by road — is the historic Royal Hotel Harrisville, where we tuck into schnitzel for lunch and down a couple of cold beers. Publicans Steve and Monika Patrick bought the pub three years ago, and will soon open their first accommodation, in a restored railway carriage, to complement the free camping they offer to travellers.

In stark contrast to the Royal’s elegant Queenslander-style verandahs, our next pub stop is the Sundowner Saloon at Haigslea, on the busy Warrego Highway. With a front garden of tall cactus, saloon doors and Clint Eastwood gazing down from the restaurant wall, it’s country and western territory.

We finish our tour in town at Ipswich’s new boutique brewery, the Pumpyard Bar. On the ground floor in the heritage-listed former Ipswich Technical College, where blacksmiths and plumbers once learned their trades, the place is all industrial-chic, with a long wooden bar and shiny stainless steel brewing tanks lining the walls.

Award-winning brewer Wade Curtis and co-owner James Long are hopeful their 4 Hearts Brewing venture will attract not only locals but Brisbane-ites looking for new places to drink and dine.

With 10 taps, the brewhouse is offering its own seven beers (with names such as Coalminers Stout to reflect the city’s heritage), “guest” boutique beers and ciders, and organic soft drinks. The beer-focused menu includes a signature beef cheek dish and even beer ice-cream.

Pumpyard is the first tenant in the redevelopment of the sprawling old Technical College, to be known as 88 Limestone, in Ipswich’s Top of Town district. This takes in Ellenborough, Brisbane and Limestone streets, all bustling with renovation and redevelopment projects. Cafes and restaurants are springing up and there are vintage fashion stores, the Daily Planet comic shop and CJ Volger & Son’s model and hobby store. None of it is far from the Ipswich Art Gallery, which lays claim to being the nation’s most visited regional art gallery, and Jamie Oliver’s first Australian Ministry of Food kitchen.

But it’s the Latin phrase emblazoned on the frieze on the front of the Limestone 88 building that catches my eye. Auspicium Melioris Aevi, it reads. The translation, I’m told, is roughly, “the promise of a better age”. Somehow, it seems appropriate.

Lee Mylne was a guest of the Metro Hotel Ipswich International, Floating Images and Pterodactyl Helicopters.

CHECKLIST

Floating Images Hot Air Balloon Flights runs one-hour balloon flights daily, including a champagne breakfast. More: floatingimages.com.au.

Pterodactyl Helicopters has a range of options including wine and pub tours. More: pterodactyl.com.au.

Metro Hotel Ipswich International has 97 guestrooms and nine one-bedroom apartments. More: metrohotels.com.au.

Katie Noonan in Concert - Ipswich Qld

Four time ARIA Award winner Katie Noonan is back in 2015 with a brand new band and a new album.

As Katie’s first band project since 2010′s acclaimed Emperor’s Box (with The Captains), the new album shows a richer and fuller sound than Katie’s more recent intimate and acoustic sojourns.

Premiering material from the new album as well as some of her favourite songs, this show marks the beginning of Katie’s exciting new musical chapter.

Katie Noonan announces new band, single and EP

‘Peace Is My Drug’

Support Act Sahara Beck

Katie Noonan returns to the spotlight in 2015 with the launch of a heartfelt new single and EP, ‘Peace Is My Drug’. This release will be accompanied by tour dates across SA, VIC, NSW and QLD from March 12 to March 28 and will be available exclusively via audience fundraising site PledgeMusic, or as a limited edition CD on the tour itself.

Following on from a number of years of unique and highly-acclaimed projects – Songs That Made Me, Love Song Circus, Songbook and Songs of the Southern Skies with Karin Schaupp – this celebrated singer songwriter is ready to share her new original material. The EP will feature two new tracks – ‘Peace Is My Drug’ and ‘Cloud of Home’ – with additional remixes to tantalise the senses. ‘Peace Is My Drug’ is based around the Michael Leunig poem ‘Peace’, with Leunig creating a second verse to the poem exclusively for this song.

Katie is thrilled to work with a band again, returning to her first love and harking back to the days of George after several solo, duo, ensemble and cross platform collaborations in recent years. This new band line-up includes two members of The Captains – Stu Hunter and Declan Kelly, as well as outstanding Melbourne guitarist Ben Edgar (Angus & Julia Stone). The tour will see the band premiering new material from the ‘Peace Is My Drug’ EP and forthcoming album, as well as songs from The Katie Noonan and The Captains project and one or two Noonan favourites.

As a proudly independent artist, Katie is launching a PledgeMusic campaign, an undertaking that will enable her to finish and release an album of new material. Katie discussed the campaign today, saying, ‘I have been hesitant to do so for many years, as I figure it’s enough to ask people to come to my gigs and buy my albums. But having produced six independent albums in close to five years, I am in a position now where I would love to invite my wonderful audience and supporters to be part of the journey for my next album.

My next album feels like a return to me. This is the first truly Katie album with all new material in a long time. All in all, I’m really proud of these songs and so excited to be able to share them.’

When: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 @ 7.30pm
Tickets: https://au.patronbase.com/_Ipswich

• Adult $48.00
• Adult Early Bird $42.00
• Concession/Student $42.00
• Concession/Student Early Bird $36.00
• Group10+ $38.00
• Group 10+ Early Bird $32.00

FREE Program included plus ‘Meet and Greet’ the musicians after the show.

EARLY BIRD TICKETS PURCHASED ON OR BEFORE FRIDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2015!

• Performance Duration 2 Hours
• 20 Minute Interval
• No Photography/Flash Photography or video allowed

Source: http://www.ipswichciviccentre.com.au/katie-noonan-and-band-in-concert/

Show is gold for Ipswich ABBA fans

SWEDISH SENSATION: The Ultimate ABBA Show will hit Ipswich Civic Centre on March 6.

MAMMA Mia - ABBA is back.

Fans of the 70s Swedish pop sensation will be given the opportunity to brush the dust off of those platform shoes, short skirts and ridiculously tight white flares when GOLD: The Ultimate ABBA Show hits Ipswich on March 6.

Kathleen Malony, who performs as blonde bombshell Agnetha Fältskog, said The New Arrival Tour would celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of the 1975 album, ABBA.

"It's as close as you can get to how ABBA performed in the 70s," she said.

"After the show last year we had people telling us that they felt just like they did when they saw the real band live, which is very flattering.

"There are a lot of die-hard ABBA fans out there and we want to make sure they get the real experience."

The show will feature internationally recognised ABBA performers who have rehearsed singing, talking, dressing and performing exactly like the band for months.

"I've really done my research," Ms Malony said.

"We've watched old videos and have been rehearsing for months.

"People can expect amazing musicians, intricate costumes, live singing and even Swedish accents."

Ms Malony said that the group always made a point of getting out into the audience and chatting to the crowd after each and every show.

"We're always trying to improve and get as close to the original as we can," she said.

"I've been doing this for three years now and this year we will be really taking it to the next level.

"We're excited, I just can't wait to take this on the road."

To book tickets for the show or for more information visit ipswichciviccentre.com.au or phone 3810 6100.

Source: http://www.qt.com.au/news/show-is-gold-for-ipswich-abba-fans/2535163/


Metro Hotel Ipswich International is located next to the Civic Theatre and offers excellent value accommodation - to book visit: www.metrohotels.com.au/hotels/queensland/metro-hotel-ipswich-international

Prom 15 – Time Warriors | Civic Theatre Ipswich

Ipswich City Orchestra dares to take you from ancient Rome to the world of sci-fi movies.

Be transported for a couple of hours to “galaxies far far away” with music from Starwars, E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial and even 2001 – A Space Odyssey.

Breathtaking music will sit beside the majestic marches you know so well. 

Come and be surprised at the very clever program designed to appeal to all ages!

You can come dressed as your favourite Starwars or sci-fi character, or come as you are and enjoy a unique Prom.

Some works will have images and video footage to add to the presentation.

Witness the BIGGEST Orchestra ever mounted in Ipswich under the baton of Chief Resident Conductor, Patrick Burns.

Find Nearby Accommodation at Metro Hotel Ipswich International

Metro Hotel Ipswich International Show Package http://www.metro-hotel-ipswich-international.bookings.metrohotels.com.au/show-package-accommodation-hot-deal

#prom15 #timewarriors #ipswich #ipswichtourism #showsipswich #ipswichhotels #ipswichqld

- See more at: http://qldhotels.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/prom-15-time-warriors-civic-theatre.html#sthash.u5ROjO3A.dpuf

Taste Testing Some New Dessert & Appetizers for Our New A La Carte Menu at Metro Hotel Ipswich International

Taste Testing Some New Dessert and Appetizer Options for Our New A La Carte Menu at Platform 9 Restaurant and Bar, Metro Hotel Ipswich International

Chocolate Ganache (close up)

Chocolate Ganache

New Dessert

Pork Terrine

Prawn

Salmon

Metro Hotel Ipswich International - 2014 Christmas Degustation Lunch Menu

DEGUSTATION CHRISTMAS LUNCH AT METRO IPSWICH INTERNATIONAL:

8 COURSE DEGUSTATION CHRISTMAS MENU

VEGETARIAN DEGUSTATION CHRISTMAS MENU:

The Ipswich dining scene has raised its game with the presence of international experienced English chef, Guy Farrow. Before arriving in Australia, Chef Guy worked in roles as Sous Chef at the famous five-star Savoy Hotel in London which has accommodated and dined hundreds of celebrity actors, rock stars, politicians and royalty. Prior to that, Chef Guy worked at the equally famous stately home of Cliveden in Taplow, home of Lord and Lady Astor and also the setting to the world renowned ‘ Profumo Scandal’ that occurred in the 1960’s. Guy is classically trained in cooking and was inspired by his ‘idol’ Raymond Blanc, OBE when Guy started his cooking career at Oakley Court Hotel. The hotel is situated on the River Thames near Windsor where he was trained by Masterchef, Murdo McSween.

At the Metro Hotel Ipswich International this Christmas, Guy brings his diverse experience in fine dining and event catering with a fabulous eight course Degustation Christmas Day lunch. There will be no traditional turkeys with all the trimmings or plum pudding with lashes of brandy custard, instead Guy will use local produce to include vegetables, seafood, salads, beef and a variety of home-made sauces,. Cost of the meal is $135 and a special vegetarian menu is also available.

Chef Guy understands foods that go with the climate and has not forgotten his days growing up in the UK. “I always remember waking up on Christmas morning, going for an early crisp walk to church with the family and the smell of log fires” he says. “When we arrived back home, it was opening of the presents and waiting for the hot traditional turkey complete with the trimmings, followed by huge servings of plum pudding with brandy custard” he adds. After extensive travelling Guy set up home in Brisbane spending three and half years teaching cooking at the Private Hospitality Training School. His vision as Executive Chef at the Metro Ipswich International is to work even closer with as many local producers from Ipswich to the Lockyer Valle and present special themed meals according to the seasonality of the produce. He is also working on setting up a cooking school to share his passion with as many people who are enthusiastic to learn his culinary skills and techniques.

When asked what his tip was for cooking Christmas lunch, regardless of hot or cold, his reply “Give yourself plenty of time. Prepare as much as possible a couple of days beforehand and have minimum cooking on the day. Keep it simple and use nice flavours” he said. “And relax and enjoy the company around you” he added.

Enjoy a family getaway this summer at Metro Hotel Ipswich International. Terrific value from $150 per night including a full buffet breakfast (for up to 4 guests) in our own Platform 9 Restaurant and accommodation in a self-contained, family-friendly apartment. Featuring a kitchenette with dishwasher, LCD TV with DVD player and Foxtel, minibar and complimentary Wifi, they are the ideal choice for families visiting Ipswich. Complimentary car parking is also available on site.

Bookings can be made at Metro Hotel Ipswich International by calling the toll free Central Reservations line on 1800 004 321 or visit www.metrohotels.com.au to book online.