CABIN FEVER 2025

Cabin Fever is 10 days of raucous winter fun in the South West that encourages locals and visitors to get out into the region for a good time. 2025 will be the ninth instalment of the festival and we’ll be bringing back all the fire, food and fun you know and love with old faithfuls, plus a line-up of new exciting events set to heat up Busselton to Margaret River and everywhere in between, and we want to hear from you so we can make that happen.

Event organisers are strictly accepting Expressions of Interest between December 11, 2024 and February 7, 2025. Please read through the 2024 Cabin Fever feedback below when considering your event concepts for 2025. 

Dates

Friday 18 – Sunday 27 July, 2025. 

Target Markets - 

• Cabin Fever aims to attract a mix of local and overnight visitors, with the below behaviours.
• Dual income couples between the ages of 25 and 45 who choose to spend their disposable income on eating and drinking at the newest restaurants and bars, and like to attend quirky events such as Fringe Festival.
• Empty nesters who choose to spend their disposable income on fine dining, quality products and comfortable holidays.

What we are looking for - 

• Businesses interested in creating and implementing a suitable event for Cabin Fever 2025, which is unique to the program and not available at any other time of the year. The AHOY team (event organisers) are happy to work with venues by either providing or developing event concepts.
• A mix of free and ticketed events, large-scale and small-scale. Please see the 2024 feedback below for ideas.
• Events that showcase the Southwest and all its offerings, from the wine, beer, food, spirits, music, art, and nature and that shine a spotlight on the fantastic businesses that operate here.
• Events that are unique to the program, aren't currently being offered to your wine club and not currently being run by your team in other parts of W.A.
• The 2024 program was as large as the program can get. So in 2025 we are looking for more collaboration events between businesses. This will make the fees more manageable for businesses and also creates unique, one-off events and hopefully develops some great relationships between businesses. Feel free to reach out to chat through what this has looked like for other events in the past. 

Cabin Fever Feedback from 2024 (what people want to see more of) - 

• Collaborative events - joining forces with either South West or Perth businesses
• Food and beverage specials at participating venues
• Lower cost, free events (below $100)
• More live music events
• Fine-dining meals
• Events and dinners in town centres
• Beer hall event

Cost:

Now in its ninth year, Cabin Fever has a well-sustained, significant umbrella marketing campaign that has strong reach through our social media, PR, traditional, out of home and other owned, earned and paid activities. Having an event on the Cabin Fever Festival line-up not only means being part of a locally-run festival that activates the South West in winter, but also means your business enjoys the benefits of being a part of both the umbrella campaign and activities specific to you.

Cabin Fever is implementing a new three-tier marketing fee approach in 2025. We will still have our Intimate Event (for events under 30 pax), however next year we will be introducing a Large-Scale Lite and Large Scale option, the main difference being the inclusion of a photographer and videographer at your event. We want to ensure our incredible artists/suppliers are paid appropriately, and also understand that a lot of venues have their own incredible, in-house photographers, so we have decided to create two large-scale tiers to better suit the needs of venues. Please get in contact with festival organisers to discuss which tier is right for you.

Intimate Event - $500 plus GST. For events roughly 30pax and under with less propensity to make income. If you fall under the Intimate Event category but would like the benefits of the Large Scale please get in touch with the AHOY team. 

• Inclusion under the Cabin Fever Festival umbrella and associated marketing
• Inclusion in the Cabin Fever printed program
• Dedicated event page on the Cabin Fever website, including ticket link
• Ticket sales setup on Humanitix and all ticket sales management
• Setup of a Facebook Event Page
• Inclusion in paid marketing campaign
• 2 x tickets to Cabin Fever launch party (event details TBC)
• Face to Face meetings with Event Organisers, as well as ongoing communication and support with planning, marketing, promotion and rollout of event
• Corflute Directional signage 

Large-Scale Lite - $800 plus GST. Large-scale events receive all associated benefits of Intimate Events, plus:

• Promotion of your event and relevant business news/imagery through selected marketing activities (social media, public relations, advertising)
• Your event pitched to media
• Larger event listing in program (1/2 page)
• At least one (1) story series
• Inclusion in blog
• 4 x invites to the Launch Party 

Large-Scale - $1250 plus GST. Large-scale events receive all associated benefits of Intimate and Large-Scale Lite events, plus:

• Confirmed Photographer and Videographer at your event
• Post-event reel specific to your event
• At least one (1) boosted/paid post on Facebook and Instagram

Please complete the form below and tell us about your event concept. Please don't hesitiate to get in touch with one of the AHOY team members if you would like to discuss your ideas before submitting. 

Proposed date and time. Please state two possible dates/times for your event concept between Friday 18 – Sunday 27 July, 2025.

Please outline the approximate minimum and maximum capacity of your event (minimum capacity provides us with an idea of how many tickets you need to sell to make your event viable.)

Friends of Cabin Fever

After a successful four years, we’ll be running this promotion again in the month prior to going live with the Cabin Fever program at the beginning of May, so we are on the hunt for businesses who would like to be involved in the promo this year.

For those who missed have missed it, ‘Friends of Cabin Fever’ is a ticket consumers can purchase which gives them 48 hour access to ticket sales before they go public as well as getting a first look at the program when it first comes out.

This is a free opportunity to promote our venues as part of this too, so if there is an offer you would like us to include as part of ‘Friends of Cabin Fever’ please click interested below and we will be in touch for your special shortly.

Town Takeovers

Three town takeovers will activate centres in Margaret River, Dunsborough and Busselton for the duration of Cabin Fever.

Town Takeovers will see local venues in each town put on specials, ‘Meet the Maker’ events and other activations throughout the festival to bring a sense of celebration to the region’s town centres. This will give an opportunity for more locals and visitors to engage with the festival and local businesses.

There are so many ways you can participate and we highly encourage collaborating with other local businesses to offer something for the duration of the festival that you don’t normally offer, and which fits with the Cabin Fever vibe - here’s some examples:

• Having an artist in residence
• Featuring different local producers on your menu
• Creating a Cabin Fever special (cocktail, menu item)
• Having ‘meet the maker’ sessions - wine, beer, distiller, artist
• Having a pop up cellar door for the duration of the festival

Cost of involvement - $180+GST

Inclusions:

• Inclusion in the Town Takeover features in Cabin Fever eDMs to our database
• Inclusion in Town Takeover social media features including grid posts and stories, organic and paid 
• Inclusion in the full page ad dedicated to your town in the printed program
• Featured on Town Takeover event page on Cabin Fever website
• Featured in the Town Takeover blog post on website and boosted on socials
• Collateral to help you promote (poster and social tile templates)
• Any additional opportunities that arise

Conditions of Inclusion (please read carefully):

Upon completing this expression of interest, I/we are confirming that I/we agree to the below conditions of inclusion in Cabin Fever, 2025.

• I/we are willing to offer up to 4x tickets to event organisers for promotional use, sponsors, media or for AHOY representatives.
• Any marketing collateral created will be planned with and approved by event organisers.
• I/we agree that event organisers will get final signoff on event concepts, ticket price, inclusions and date/time.
• I/we agree that transport options will be considered if events are taking place outside of town sites. 
• Ability to provide an up-to-date Risk Management Plan two months prior to the event.
• I/we agree to mention that the event is part of the Cabin Fever program on menus, printed collateral, marketing and in speeches.
• I/we have provided two possible dates for our event within the festival period (to allow flexibility in the festival program).
• I/we understand that included events are at the discretion of the management team. 
• I/we confirm that our event concept is (and will remain) exclusive to Cabin Fever before and during the 2025 festival.