What's on at Avoca Beach?
Avoca Beach celebrates the 5 Lands Walk each year with art and music. The Connections art exhibition in the Surf Club, live music on the Bulbararing Stage in Hunter Park and the Ephemera exhibition of sculptural installations on the beach are regular fixtures. Stroll around the Community Fair, sit and enjoy the music or get up and dance! Or you can venture to the sand and watch surfers dance with the waves and enjoy the artworks. If you love fine art, you’ll be happy upstairs at the Surf Club with beautiful live music setting the atmosphere as you wander in wonder through the exhibition.
And remember puppet theatres? Bring the kids to a traditional (well, with a twist) puppet show on the waterfront by Professor Beazley’s Pop-up Puppets!
2024 Program
The Bulbararong Stage in Hunter Park
This year our focus is on the Youth of the Central Coast. We aim to celebrate the extraordinary talents of young people, who are our future!
10:00 U-Bouddi Big Band featuring special guest young singer
11:00 Central Coast Steiner School Band
11:30 Jerome Drobot – solo guitar virtuoso
12:00 Message Stick Ceremony
12:15 Central Coast Grammar School Band
1:00 Violin Extravaganza – Central Coast Conservatorium
1:30 Jerome Drobot – solo guitar virtuoso
1.50 Avoca Beach Public School Band
2:15 Violin Extravaganza – Central Coast Conservatorium
2:45 Central Coast Grammar School Band
All day
Discover artists creating on the spot for Art in the Open and enjoy the Ephemera sculptural installations on the beachfront. And go upstairs to the Surf Club to find the Connections art exhibition.
While you’re looking at Connections artworks, you’ll be treated to the sounds of the Central Coast Conservatorium violin ensemble.
Our roving jazz band, The Red Hot Papas featuring the Bouncin’ Czech, will pop up at various locations at Avoca Beach through the day.
Be sure to come and enjoy the Community Fair in Hunter Park. Community organisations will give you information about their amazing work, you’ll see Take 3 for the Sea, shark exhibits and fun for the kids, including face painting, Friendship Leaves and more!
For the kids
Did we mention Professor Beazley's Pop-Up Puppets out on the path to Avoca Point? Yes! Inspired by the classic beachside Punch and Judy puppet theatres of old, encouraging active audience participation, the puppets thrive on spontaneous interactions from inquisitive children, and puppet malfunction. At the end of each show, children are encouraged to play with the puppets and see how they work. Check the chalkboard for show times from 10am.
Stop on the beach and have a rest while the kids enjoy playing and creating in the sand with far too many beach toys at Kids Dig Fun!
Make sure you visit the Friendship Leaves table in the Community Fair near the stage and write a message on a leaf to ‘leave’ along the walk for someone else to find. All a part of connecting people to place, and place to people.
The kids will love our Treasure Hunt!
Toilets
• Across the road on the Eastern end of the Avoca Beach Surf Club
• Upstairs in the Avoca Beach Surf Club
History of Avoca
The Aboriginal people of this area named Avoca Beach “Bulbararong”, which means where the waters meet the sea. The British settlers called it “Avoca Beach”, named after the Irish village, Avoca, in County Wicklow, famous as the location for the filming of the TV series Ballykissangel. Interestingly, the name means "great estuary" or "where the river meets the sea".
Bulbararong was a popular gathering place for the Aboriginal people before white settlement. In the place now known as Hunter Park, is the site of a midden, which provides evidence of a feasting place. So perhaps it's no surprise that today this ancient gathering place hosts both the Picture Theatre and the Surf Club, twin hubs of community life at Avoca Beach.
In 1830, 640 acres were granted to Irish army officer John Moore. who built a house opposite Avoca Lake and planted vines, cereals and fruit trees. Timber was later felled from the area and was transported by tram to a mill at Terrigal via what is now Tramway Road in North Avoca. Citrus and banana crops were also grown.
Avoca Beach today is a busy coastal resort village with cafés and restaurants, safe swimming and surfing. It's especially notable for its active artistic community, many of whom will be exhibiting in the Connections exhibition upstairs in the Surf Club, showing their sculptures in the Ephemera exhibition on the beach or painting outdoors, for Art in the Open.
