Alice Springs Beanie Festival is a unique craft event held mid-year in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, every year, bringing together Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians under the common beanie. The festival, which started with the dedicated efforts of several Centralian craftspeople from remote areas and Alice Springs to raise the status of beanie making into a distinctive regional art form, has now become an international craft festival.
Today, the Beanie Festival includes a market, prize exhibition, parade, workshops and concert. The festival is based entirely on volunteer effort and receives no outside funding. For those who are still wondering about what a beanie is, it is a form of skullcap. Various prizes given at the Alice Springs Beanie Festival: - Most sculptural beanie
- Spirit of the land
- Beanie that best incorporates a design of Australian native flora and fauna
- Most festive beanie
- Most stylish beanie
- Mad Hatter's Prize
- Best Tea Cosie Special Prizes given at the Alice Springs Beanie Festival: - Committee prize for the best use of embellishment
- Central Australian Prize for Makers of the Region
- Beanie Festival Committee Acquisitive Prize for Wonderful and Unusual Work
- The Robbie Beard Prize for Innovative Work
- People's Prize: The Favourite Beanie of 2006
*For international entries, the entry fee must be paid with an international bank cheque or in Australian dollars. Any money owing international artists is paid with a National Australia bank cheque in Australian dollars.
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