Sydney Santa Spectacular

From Lapland to Western Sydney, Penrith Panthers Precinct will be the new home of Australia's biggest Christmas festival, when the much-loved Sydney Santa Spectacular returns with a winter wonderland extravaganza this November 23- December 27,2019.

Now in its fifth year, the North Pole-inspired family festival is set to run for an entire month for the first time in 2019. The extended festival dates and venue change follow unprecedented attendance to last year's event, as well as growing public demand for early Christmas celebration kick-offs, Christmas parties and after work evening sessions.

"We're excited to be heading to a new venue at Penrith Panthers for our fifth year of the Sydney Santa Spectacular. The move to Penrith allows us to kick off the event off two weeks earlier, which is something our customers have been asking for over the past few years," said Sydney Santa Spectacular Founder and Director, Jade Evans, who organises the event alongside her husband Josh, six children and a team of tight-knit family and friends.

"It will be every bit as big and magical as it has always been – but with some fun new additions and more choice around session attendance," she added.

Demand has already been meet with action, with year-on-year sales to the Sydney Santa Spectacular up a massive 300% since Early Bird tickets to the 2019 event went on sale this week. To-date ticket sales put the event on track to break attendance records from all previous years.

A limited Christmas in July Early Bird Special is still available for tickets at www.sydneysantaspectacular.com, which brings the price of purchase down almost 50%.

"We're thrilled to see the positive reaction to our move to Penrith Panthers. We've had such a warm welcome from the precinct and the local community, and we're feeling right at home already! Tickets sales have been going amazing so far; we've never had such a huge response to our first week on-sale. We're offering our best ticket price ever at the moment to celebrate Christmas in July and it seems people are ready to get into the Christmas spirit," said Jade Evans.

The Sydney Santa Spectacular will deliver the city's coolest silly-season celebration – complete with one of Australia's largest portable ice skating rinks, imported direct from Italy for a snowy sampling of European winter in Sydney's scorching summer heat.

The festival features Australia's only double-decker carousel – a vintage beauty of 10,000 moving pieces that has been painstakingly hand-restored to take pride of place alongside show-ride favourites including the Cha, Wave Swinger, Red Baron Flyer, Circus Train, Teacups, Sea Circus Fun House and Australia's biggest inflatable world.

The event also offers unlimited rides, a toboggan slide, live stage entertainment, a glittering Santa's Enchanted Forest with live snowfall, Christmas cookie-decorating workshops, an Elves Grotto, reindeer ride-on training stables, interactive costume characters, fairy reading-times, live carolling, face-painting, live Snow Queen stage show, special Santa meet-and-greets and much more.

With a strong emphasis on value-for-money for families, event organisers have created a flat-priced golden entry ticket, which entitles all festivalgoers to unlimited rides, activities, entertainment and free parking over a three-hour session.

"Even in the years before we founded Sydney Santa Spectacular, my husband Josh and I were obsessed with Christmas. We have six kids, so we know how expensive it can be to take a big family to a special event – especially at a pricey time like Christmas. We don't want anyone to miss out, so work hard to ensure the ticketing remains great value and not too expensive," added Jade Evans.

"All rides and parking are included in our tickets – which is awesome value – and while we do sell food and drinks at the event, families can also opt to BYO to make it even more affordable," she said.

The spirit of giving is also an integral part of the Sydney Santa Spectacular, adds Evans, noting that her favourite event element is a towering 15 metre charity Christmas tree, under which attendees are encouraged to place gifts for sick and needy kids.

Over the past four years, the Sydney Santa Spectacular team has hand-delivered more than 15,000 presents from under the giving tree to the Sydney Children's Hospital and Westmead Children's Hospital. Last year, the team also drove a truck with hundreds of donated gifts and bales of hay to the drought-ravaged community of Naromine – taking Santa to the local primary school for some much needed cheer.

"Last year was our biggest year of gift giving – and getting out to the country in Naromine really bought home to us what the spirit of Christmas is all about. One of the things we enjoy the most is playing Mr & Mrs Claus, loading up the Team Santa van and delivering gifts to the sick kids. Our generous festival-goers donated so many gifts last year that we were still able to visit the hospitals as well as the community in Naromine," said Evans.

Since its founding in 2014 the Sydney Santa Spectacular has welcomed more than 400,000 people through its doors, with Christmas-lovers of all ages flocking from across Australia and abroad for a North Pole experience like no other.

Tickets for the Sydney Santa Spectacular are on sale now at: www.sydneysantaspectacular.com

Sydney Santa Spectacular at Penrith Panthers
Where: 123 Mulgoa Road, Penrith
When: November 23 – December 27 2019 –session times vary each day and should be checked online
How much: General entry – starting at just $27.50 per person for early bird purchases (group booking deals also available) until this coming Sunday. After that the piece will be $50 pp/ticket.
Children under 2 are free and do not require a ticket
www.sydneysantaspectacular.com
www.facebook.com/sydneysantaspectacular