Considered one of Australia’s largest sustainability-themed events, Lake Macquarie’s Living Smart Festival is back and taking over Speers Point Park for one day this September.

The Living Smart Festival is on a mission to encourage people to learn about and embrace everyday sustainability practices, raise awareness of environmental issues, foster a love of the outdoors, and inspire people to live more sustainably.

This year’s festival, supported by the NSW Government’s Stronger Together Major Festival Local Council Grants program, will take place on Saturday, September 21 from 9am-3pm.

The free one-day festival will see a range of workshops, stalls, and presenters cover all things sustainability, while a multicultural zone will invite people from around the world to showcase practices, traditions, dancing, music, and cooking from their home countries.

Alone Australia season one winner, Gina Chick, Frugal Foodie Steph de Sousa, and River Cottage Australia host Paul West are set to spearhead this year’s festival.

Gina, who spent 67 days solo in the Tasmanian wilderness to take out the inaugural season of Alone Australia in 2023, will talk to festival goers about the experience, what she learnt from it, and how connecting with nature can strengthen and enrich the soul.

Steph rose to fame as a contestant on MasterChef, but has enjoyed even greater success as a social media star. The Lake Mac resident has gained an army of more than one million followers through her cheap and cheerful recipes and cooking videos and will teach Living Smart Festival-goers about keeping things sustainable – environmentally and financially – in the kitchen.

Paul, who describes himself as a ‘food grower, family feeder, and yarn spinner,’ hosts the cult-hit ABC show River Cottage Australia, and co-founded the Grow It Local movement. Grow it Local encourages more Australians to grow, share, and eat locally grown food, and has more than 37,000 members and 6,100 registered food growing patches nationwide.

“Living Smart Festival is one of Lake Mac’s landmark annual events. It’s a celebration of living sustainably and has played a major role instilling a more environmentally friendly mindset into the mainstream,” Lake Macquarie Mayor Kay Fraser said.

The Living Smart Festival is proudly sponsored by the NSW Government’s Multicultural NSW, Hunter Resource Recovery, Hunter Water, Allambi Care, the University of Newcastle, Newcastle Weekly, and Greater Bank.

Living Smart Festival

Where: Speers Point Park
When: 21 Sep | 9am-3pm
More Info: click here