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This article was published on Thursday, 17 January, 2019. The information contained within may be out of date or inaccurate. News articles and media releases older than 60 days are archived for future reference.

Greater Shepparton experiencing event bonanza for January regional events

Usually a more quiet time on the calendar, the region has welcomed teams and visitors from across a number of leading sport codes.

Making a start to the year Greater Shepparton hosted the Cricket Australia Country Championships for women and men. The fixture included players from across Australia as well as international teams, who played across seven local host venues over 10 days, contributing in excess of $750,000 to the region’s economy.

The year has also started off with a number of significant tennis events forming part of a broader festival of tennis for the city.

Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club hosted the GV Junior Tennis and AMT Championships in the first week of January with more than 400 players converging on the region. Tennis Seniors Australia followed and has been in town for the past fortnight for the Australian Teams Carnival and Australian Individual Championships.

To secure these prestigious events to the region, Council set up over 20 temporary grass courts at the Mooroopna Recreation Reserve to complement the existing renovated facilities at Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club.

With more than 1,000 visitors experiencing all that the region has to offer, the festival of tennis has seen a benefit to the region of in excess of $1 million.

On 7 January Undera Park Speedway drew a crowd of more than 1,000 visitors for the third round of Australian National Solo Championships.

Rounding out major events for January will be the influx of visitors to Tatura Park over the next week for the iconic International Dairy Week.

This is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest dairy show and one of the world’s top three biggest cattle events. With around 6,000 visitors expected throughout the week the event is another significant boost for the region, injecting more than $2.2 million into our economy.

Greater Shepparton Mayor Cr Kim O’Keeffe said it was great to have so many fantastic large scale visitor events happening to start the year off.

"The month of January has further enhanced our reputation as the regional events destination for Victoria. It is great to see the broad variety of activities for visitors to be able to enjoy while they are visiting our city,” Cr O’Keeffe said.

“The events have provided a large economic boost for retail, accommodation, tourism and hospitality operators and continue to help create jobs and keep local businesses busy and the economy strong.”

The events boom for the month of January has set the tone in what is expected to be the biggest events year in Greater Shepparton history, with a jammed packed calendar of events planned for 2019.

This includes new week long events such as the Victorian Country Week Tennis in February, BMX National Championships in May, Hockey Australia National Championships in August and the AFL V/Line Cup in September.

Along with the week-long events, Greater Shepparton will also host a number of weekend events such as the JLT Community Series AFL pre-season match in March between Richmond and Melbourne with a crowd of up to 10,000 people expected, the under 14 Basketball Country Victoria Championships in April and the Victorian Masters Softball Championships in June.

This further builds on the region’s 2018 major events calendar which saw $44.5 million generated for the economy, 17 new events added and more than140,000 visitors from outside Greater Shepparton visiting for major events.

“These events further put the spotlight on Shepparton as a great place to live, work, invest, visit and play,” Cr Kim O’Keeffe said.

To see a list of upcoming events and information, click here.