Our day at the Ekka (2014)

Yesterday our family went to the Ekka for the first time ever.  We have lived in Brisbane since 1998, and have not been once.  Every year we hear so many people complaining about the crowds and the diseases and the cost and really had no desire to go.  This year we decided to give it a go.

We have two children - Megan is 12 and Reid is 9.  I do not think I would brave it with younger children.  Even after giving very specific instructions we still managed to lose both of them at various times through the day.

Before we went I had trouble finding many people who had written about their experience in detail so I hope this might help others who are deciding whether to go.

Selecting the Day

The public holiday for us is the Monday (Logan area), so that is the day that we chose.  I don't think I could have braved it on the weekend.  I got the feeling that the crowds really weren't too bad yesterday.  It was busy and there were a few lines but nothing too long.

The Tickets

We purchased the Family Funday Pass for $69 which was $25 less than buying the individual tickets.  Then because we knew there was no way that we would get away without doing a few rides, we upgraded to the Family Ride Deal Package, which is the family entry ticket plus an $80 ride pass, so the ride pass was effectively $64.

Then because I know how much they like these sort of things, I bought two of the Ekka Adventure Trail passes for the kids.

When we arrived on Monday morning we just lined up at the gate and they scanned the ticket that I had printed out and we were in within a few minutes.  We took the ride ticket voucher to the information booth where we received our ride card and the Adventure Trail sheets (this is an A4 flyer that you will lose several times through the day amongst all of the other papers that you collect along the way).

Getting There

Discount tickets are offered on the train ($6 adult, $3 child), which would have worked out to $18 for our family.  We decided that would be very exciting and lots of fun on the way THERE, but not so fun on the way home after a long day, and made the call that $30 for a guaranteed car park just down the road was the better option for us.  Traffic was lighter than usual and we arrived at the front gate at 8:50 am.

The Rides

Yes, some of them are hideously expensive.  Some of them are not too bad.  We knew we had the $80 pass so I told the kids to look at the list online and choose $27 worth of rides that they thought they might like to go on.  This was really good because by the time we arrived, they knew which ones sounded either too extreme or too "young".  That would leave some money over for Dallas or I to go on a couple of rides with them.

We decided to hit the rides first before anyone ate anything (the vomit factor), and before the crowds built up.  I have to say that Sideshow Alley was my least favourite place.  Even before the crowds arrived it was so noisy!  In between the rides are the games, and every single game and ride operator is playing loud music or spruiking on a microphone.  They call out to you, gesture for you to come over, plead with you that everyone is a winner and you've got to be in it to win it.  It was no temptation for me, the budget conscious one, but huge stands full of minions, pokemons, and assorted stuffed cartoon characters were extremely tempting for a nine year old.  Thankfully he realised we were there to do his $27 worth of rides and didn't spend too long looking at them.

Now I would consider myself pretty good at using maps, but despite studying the map before we arrived, I managed to be completely oblivious of the fact that there was a totally separate area for "Kids Rides", and we were unable to find two of the rides that Reid had initially wanted to do.  For people like me I would have appreciated a separate map of the rides so that we could find them once we were there.

The other thing that they don't tell you on the website is that the operators offer specials on multiple tickets.  For example, the Euroslide is $3 for one ticket, or $7 for 3.  This gave Reid $2 extra to spend as he had decided that he wanted to ride it 3 times.

First up Megan and Dallas braved the SkyWalker, $18 for two people, which made Reid and I ill just to watch.  I had previously thought that the prices were excessive for such a short ride, but this one seemed to go on for a really long time.

Reid loves these big slides and spent most of his time at our school fair on the one they had there, so he then did 3 rides on the Euroslide ($7).  Then he had a turn on the WaveSwinger ($8), which he really enjoyed.

Megan and Dallas then hit the XXXL.  Not for the faint-hearted by the looks of Dallas as he came off that one.  I think that one was $20 for two.

Next up was the Pirate's adventure, which both kids did at $6 each.  Reid loved it and wanted to do it again but Megan was not convinced.

Megan desperately wanted to do Hollywood Horrors.  I was not convinced but reluctantly agreed.  Reid wanted to go but I put the foot down on that one.  The sign outside said it was not for under 10 years old and he is jittery at the best of times.  $10 got her the fright of her life and I don't think she'll be visiting any more haunted house rides any time soon.  The Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld probably gave her the wrong idea about this ride.  She was so rattled that she forgot where Dallas told her he would be waiting and we had our first lost child experience for the day.  She found us just as I was about to send someone in to find out if she was cowering in a corner somewhere.  Ironically I had given her the family phone to use for emergencies but she had left her bag with Dallas.

With $5 left Reid did the Maze of Mirrors and was in there for so long that I was considering sending someone in after him in case he couldn't find the way out.  Turns out he was deliberately getting lost over and over again to make it last longer, while I was sitting outside repeatedly listening to the speaker tell me at full volume how this ride has been losing people for 40 years.

The Learning Fun and John Reid Pavilions

By this time it was about 10:30 am.   We had a quick snack (that we brought with us) and made our way over to the kids "Learning Fun" pavilion.  To be honest this was not as fun as we had expected, although there was a lot in there to look at.  Megan did a drawing in the 52 Storey Treehouse area, while Reid and I started collecting the items on the Adventure Trail.  Reid enjoyed looking at the Lego area, and one toddler enjoyed it a little too much, absconding with some of the mini-figures out of the "do not touch" area.  At least it wasn't my kid this time.

At 11:05 Megan decided that she wanted to line up for the Kids in the Kitchen class at 11:30 (these look like they fill up pretty quickly), so we left her in line with the family mobile phone and took Reid to collect more Adventure Trail items from the vendors downstairs.  By this time we realised we should have taken the advice of the Info booth lady and found Moreton Bay Adventures first, because they give you a bag to put all of this stuff in!  We did find it eventually and by the time it was time to go and collect Megan from her class, we had collected half of the items and been through the John Reid Pavilion and the Ekka Emporium.  Given the chance I would love to go back sans-children and just spend a couple of hours wandering through the shops.  That was not going to happen with a nine-year old on a mission to collect free stuff.

Lunch

Megan had just eaten "Tacos in a Jar" in her class, and we had indulged in some honey puffs while she was otherwise occupied, so we shared some hot chips while Dallas went to get a more substantial lunch from the Brazilian BBQ.  I already knew from the school fair how much hot chips cost at these things - $5 for a cup that I would say is definitely on the small side.  I had taste tested some nachos from one of the stalls and would have gone back for more if I was not mostly full of honey puffs.

High Dive Show

There were a few shows that I wanted to see, but the High Dive one is the only one that we got to, and it was pretty spectacular.  I did wonder whether some of the smaller children were worried when the ninja diver set himself on fire before one dive.

Animals

Note to organizers: don't give a slightly obsessive child a list of things to collect and then MOVE one of the stalls so said child cannot find the stall!

We faced down meltdown #1 at this point when we couldn't find the Citrus Factory to collect the free bag of popcorn.  We started heading towards the information booth to ask but they looked really busy so we said that we would come back.  Ironically if we weren't so busy arguing about it and had looked up and a touch to the left we would have seen the stall next to the Police booth.  Later on I saw a guy with a popcorn in one hand and an Adventure Trail map in the other and he pointed us in the right direction.

We started walking towards the animals and luckily the meltdown did not prevail, and he followed.

The kids enjoyed the animals area but it was crowded and there was quite a long line to get in to pat and feed them.  We joined the line and it moved fairly quickly so it was not a long wait.  Food was $2 a pop which we skipped since our kids are not 5 and they were quite happy just patting animals.  There were plenty of sheep and goats, some chickens and some ponies.  There were pigs but only in the rest area.

Woolworths Fresh Food Pavilion

I think I could have easily had lunch for free in here.  As soon as we walked in we found Mudgeeraba Spices, which had some delicious curries to taste.  In the Woolworths area there were several taste testing stations with bread, strawberries and dipping sauce, meats, and chocolate.  There were others that we didn't try like honey samples, and beef stir fry.  The wine stand looked pretty busy.  If I had been in here first I would have come to this pavilion for lunch instead of the street vendors outside the Learning Pavilion.

Fashion and Style Pavilion

The Agricultural area is on the bottom level of this pavilion and it was amazing.  The displays of pictures made up of fruits, veges and grains were pretty incredible.  I highly recommend the Aussie Apples stand where you can get an apple slinky for $1 and apple juice for $2 - a super cheap afternoon tea (especially if you have the Adventure Trail and the slinky is free).

Upstairs is the fashion and jewellery and I would have loved to explore more but we were all pretty wiped out and still hadn't made it to the show bags.  We claimed our free Adventure Trail spring rolls (yum) and left.

The Adventure Trail Summary

This was great value for school-aged kids.  The kids loved collecting all the bits and pieces.  Be careful if you have a slightly obsessive child that you leave enough time to collect EVERYTHING.  Here is a summary of what they collected:

• Moreton Bay Adventures - bag, visor, magazine
• Alexandra Bay Beads 'N' Crystals - Water Beads
• Foxtel - Actually I'm still not sure what they gave us, we were still in the "bagless" stage and were carrying about fifteen items in a frisbee.
• Bupa - mints
• Street N Park - Sweatband
• EB Games - Magazine
• Mates4Mates - wristband
• Royal Australian Mint - pack of playing cards
• The Bunker - a metal badge
• Electorial Commission - I think this is where we got the frisbee, there was a choice of a few items
• Cartoon Network - Adventure Time erasers
• RSPCA - Chicken eco bag
• Brisbane Broncos - Poster
• The Citrus Factory - Popcorn
• Queensland Shows - Sunflower seeds (for planting)
• Tupperware - two travel shampoo bottles
• Save the Bilby - a pin (this one closed by 4pm so Megan missed out but Reid got his when he decided to run off without us over an icecream dispute)
• Advance Canine - a photo frame
• South Burnett Regional Council - accommodation voucher
• Regional Harvest - lettuce seeds and a carrot shaped bag
• Aussie Apples - an Apple Slinky - I thought this would be some stupid plastic toy but it was a real apple carved into a spiral shape - very delicious
• World Vision - magnet
• Boost Juice - a sample juice.  By sample they mean don't think there's going to be enough for you to have a sip because your kid will swallow it in one mouthful.
• Sate House - two spring rolls (winner)

There were also other stands along the way that were giving out stuff.  At Channel Seven they also collected a beach ball, hat and drink bottle.

Show Bags

We deliberately left these until the end of the day, knowing that we didn't want to carry them around all day.  Even in the middle of winter it was quite hot in the sun and any lollies or chocolate would have been gross after a few hours of that.  We discovered that the down-side to leaving it until the end of the day is that they actually have an allocated number of bags/items that they will sell each day, I suppose to make it fair/exciting for those who don't come until the last day.  So if you are after one of the women's type bags with hundreds of dollars of stuff in them, go early.  I wasn't but heard someone who was and missed out.  In the kids bags, they had not run out of the bags but some of the ones where you could choose "one of 4 items" to add to the bag had only one item left.

Again, I had made the kids read through the list of show bags and short list the ones that they wanted.  They knew that they were paying for these with their own money so they were short lists.  Megan was done very quickly.  Reid got his chocolate bags very quickly but also wanted some kind of "character" or fun bag and took a long time settling on that one.  I learned that I should have pre-set rules about the stands that they just could not buy from, such as the stands with bags that contain only crazy clark type guns/silly novelties etc.  I know it is their money but I couldn't take seeing them spend $25 on that stuff.  We had talked a lot about the "value" that was placed on each bag and how realistic they were.  He settled on a Trash Packs bag.

EkkaNites

By now it should have been time to get some dinner but I felt like we had spent all afternoon eating.  It was 5:20 so we made our way to the arena and found a seat in one of the covered pavilions.  If you have any desire to see the fireworks after they leave the ground, sit in one of the not-covered areas, or right down the front of the covered ones.

While we watched the woodchopping (very fast!), the clown (hmm), the sheepdogs (very well trained), and the wheel standing jeep (wow), the kids got started on the contents of their show bags.  The Trots race was quite interesting, perhaps a bit more exciting than normal because two of them stacked it (luckily no-one was hurt).  We were also treated to an array of entertainment starting with a bit of an Aussie tribute and the anthem, and moving on to Troy Cassar-Daley and Prinnie Stevens, who I had never heard of but I gather Megan thought was pretty good.

My favourite bit was the extreme section, with the Monster trucks and the FMX Freestyle Kings.  Those guys are truly insane.

It finished with a fire/fireworks/laser display/show that was pretty amazing and included flying fireworks kites, girls dancing with spinning fireworks, and blokes with fireworks shooting off the back of 4 wheelers.

As we left the Arena and saw the line up for the train we were ever so grateful to know that our car was only a five minute walk away, however that had to wait for half an hour while we searched for a toilet that was still open for the children that only decided they needed to go once we had left the arena.  If I get sick after the Ekka it will be because of the amenities block that we finally found in the kids rides area (oh THERE's the kids rides!!)

The Conclusion

From the kids: Ekka was awesome. (and we are high on chocolate)

From me: We had a great day but my feet hurt.  I'm glad we went but it might be a few years before we return.  I am amazed by the logistics behind a show like this and I think overall the organisers have done a great job and even if you don't do any rides, $69 for a family to spend the day here and watch the evening show is good value.