February 2023 – My Caribbean Park


	The inaugural Hello Sunshine Music and Food Festival took place right here at Caribbean Park on Saturday 11 February 2023. This article was published in the Herald Sun. Organisers of the Hello Sunshine festival have confirmed a 2024 return for the family friendly event after a hugely successful debut at Caribbean Park on the weekend. More than 11,000 tickets were sold for the February 11 festival, with a peak attendance of about 8000 people enjoying music from Amy Shark, The Cat Empire, former red Wiggle Murray Cook, Pierce Brothers and 360. Plenty of families, including up to 3000 children, also enjoyed rides, food trucks, market stalls and other carnival entertainment. Amy Shark rocks Caribbean Park at the inaugural Hello Sunshine Festival. Picture: Kiel Egging. Original Red Wiggle Murray Cook was a fan favourite as he made his festival DJ-ing debut at the Hello Sunshine Festival in Scoresby on February 11, 2023. Festival director Kieran Dole, of Lucky Entertainment, said organisers were thrilled with the response and were already working on a similar line-up to take the festival to the next level in 2024. “To see everyone have a great time with the festival is really exciting for us and exactly what we wanted to achieve,” he said. “We met the target, we were really happy with the attendance and we look forward to coming back next year.” Mr Dole said police were pleased with crowd behaviour and there was no major incidents, except for a person flying an unauthorised drone, which delayed the end-of-night fireworks display by 15 minutes. He paid tribute to the Spooner family and staff at Caribbean Park for supporting their vision for the event. “I have a young family, I was born and raised in Knox, and for us to put on an event that had so many families attend was a really high point in my career,” he said. “We know this area is such an amazing area and we didn’t want people to travel to the Yarra Valley or Mornington, we wanted to achieve an event in our backyard for families in this area. Caribbean Park once included a famous long running market which began in the 1970s and closed in July 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. It remains home to a business park, the Hyatt Place hotel and the Caribbean Rollerama, and a future masterplan is being developed for the 500 acre site. For all details regarding this event please visit HELLO SUNSHINE FESTIVAL