About the Festival

The Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival, now in its 17th year, has grown to become on of regional Australia's leading arts festivals. We welcome visitors from the Limestone Coast, Adelaide, Western Victoria and Melbourne.  We enjoy sharing our wonderful lifestyle with our visitors,  if only during this one weekend of the year.

The festival celebrates the literary and arts heritage of Penola, the fine wines of Coonawarra and our premium regional produce. We invite you to come join us this May 16-18.

Come and let your creativity run wild, lose yourself amongst the colour, words, music, food and wine!

'Penola & Coonawarra - Feed Your Senses'
Last year the committee ran a competition seeking a slogan that would capture the essence of Penola & Coonawarra and its experiences. The winning slogan was written by Gwyneth Rimmington of the Adelaide Hills. For her efforts Gwyneth won the complete festival weekend experience.

In 2007 we were pleased to announce that the Patron of our Festival is Bryan Dawe, satirist, humorist and artist. Bryan is a keen supporter of the event both through his patronage and performance over the years. We thank him for his continued support.

Whenever possible the festival committee uses local businesses and people for all work associated with the festival. We believe that the Limestone Coast is filled with talented and creative individuals and hope that in some small way we can shine some light on their talent,  work, product or service.

Our festival is organised and run by a dedicated team of local volunteers who strongly believe that an event like this brings our community closer together through the sharing of the arts experience.

2008 Committee Members
Fiona Luestner, President
Robert Miles, Vice President, Design Prize Coordinator
Simone Burdon, Vice President understudy, Website designer & manager
Nicole Reschke, Secretary
TJ Smith, Secretary understudy, Writers Element Coordinator
Gail Stephenson, Treasurer, Sponsorship & Busking Coordinators
Suzie Cottle, Children's Programme Coordinator
Kerrie McCarthy, Food Event Programme Joint Coordinator
Michelle Stehbens, Food Event Programme Joint Coordinator
Lois Hodge, John Shaw Neilson Art Prize Coordinator
Peter Muller
Rick Paltridge
Cathy Hughes
Lisa Gulyas
Dagny Strand