General News
2 January, 2024
Maryborough rings in 2024 with the most successful Highland Gathering in recent years
Maryborough welcomed 2024 in its usual fashion on Monday, putting on what organisers are calling the most successful Highland Gathering event in the last five years. Now in its 161st year, the Gathering is believed to be the oldest continuously...
Maryborough welcomed 2024 in its usual fashion on Monday, putting on what organisers are calling the most successful Highland Gathering event in the last five years.
Now in its 161st year, the Gathering is believed to be the oldest continuously running sporting event of its type in Australia and, once again, showed why the annual celebration has stood the test of time.
With the pandemic which stopped the 2021 and 2022 iterations of the event now becoming a distant memory, Maryborough Highland Society sports secretary Nick Weaver said the day was nothing but successful.
“It was honestly an amazing day, it’s probably the best one we’ve had in terms of crowd size in five years,” he said.
“To see the grandstand full, people everywhere at both ends of the ground and lines at the front gate to get in is really good to see.
“The Gathering is getting back to its roots again now and in the years to come, it’s only going to get better — this was a massive success.”
With temperatures reaching a sunny 30 degrees on the day, it was clear organisers had learnt from previous sweltering events with additional shade available to onlookers.
It was just one of the many changes made for this year’s event.
“The Victorian Athletics League have been amazing, we changed the format a little bit this year which worked really well for us and kept the crowds here throughout the day,” Mr Weaver said.
“Our street parade was also slightly different this year — we involved a Pride float and the modern Maryborough fire trucks as well as Danny Mullins’ old ones.
“The Pride float was organised by community members, they took it on themselves to champion that and get it done and why not — this is an opportunity for other community groups to come forward and get involved in the parade moving forward.”
This year’s Gathering marks the first in the event’s history with parity between the available prize money for the men’s and women’s gifts, with both featuring $15,000 prize pools.
Mr Weaver said with parity achieved, the Highland Society board will now look to attract a major sponsor to carry both gift races forward.
“We’ve been working to achieve parity between the men’s and women’s gifts for quite some time and to finally achieve that is just fantastic,” he said.
“What we would love now is for a large company to come on board as a sponsor and take those events out and possibly naming rights for the whole day.
“That is definitely something we’ll look at as a board in the future.”
Grateful for the community’s support of this year’s event, Mr Weaver was particularly grateful to residents who volunteered their time on the day.
“I’d really like to thank our volunteers and members for their support on the day, without their efforts the day just wouldn’t be possible,” he said.