Schoolies Festival™ Launching the Careers of Young People for 19 Years!

Encounter Youth, the not-for-profit charity, is in its 19th year of coordinating the state school leaver response, including Schoolies Festival™ with Principal Partner the Motor Accident Commission (MAC) at Warland Reserve, Victor Harbor.

With the state’s youth unemployment rate at 13.7%, Encounter Youth is proud that it has helped launch the careers of several young people including 2014 Battle of the Schoolies DJ Winner, Callum Reid, now a regular DJ in some of Adelaide’s hottest nightclubs.

Encounter Youth Chief Executive Officer, Nigel Knowles said, “we believe in the potential of young people, and are really proud to offer this year’s school leavers a DJ competition that may just springboard them into a job in the music industry.”

“We’d like to congratulate this year’s Battle of the Schoolies DJ finalists who get to compete on the Nova Music Bowl stage each night – Joseph Skara from Heathfield High School, Tom Tukia from Millicent High School and Jack Slade from Investigator College,” Mr Knowles said.

“Encounter Youth have also developed the leadership and event management skills in young people in our volunteer community which has provided them with tangible opportunities to gain experience helping them attain employment.”

To ensure Schoolies Festival™ with Principal Partner MAC is a celebration event for the Year 12s and tailored to what they want, Encounter Youth conducted a survey at the start of this year.

“Each Festival venue offers unique attractions to meet the diverse interests of young people including the hottest DJs, arcade games, photobooth, karaoke, dancing, retro games and much more,” said Mr Knowles.

“We are bringing a huge line-up of some of Australia’s best artists, covering a wide range of genres that are in line with school leaver’s music tastes, including dance, pop, electro, tribal grooves and underground house music just to name a few.”

“Headlining this year’s event will be the hugely popular artists ‘Press Play’ and ‘Jungle Jim’, who will be bringing Melbourne bounce flavours to the stages,” he added.

Over 500 Encounter Youth Green Team volunteers.

Over 500 Encounter Youth volunteers have been specifically trained and will be on hand to support school leavers to celebrate safely.

“The SA Schoolies Operation continues to lead the way in young people’s safety across Australia and Encounter Youth has been recognised this year nationally, taking out the Community Partnership & Collaboration Award with the City of Victor Harbor at the Local Government Professionals National Congress,” said Mr Knowles.

Encounter Youth is the State’s largest provider of alcohol and other drug education to secondary students and educated 20,000 students and parents in the past year.

“We are really proud that the effectiveness of our education program has been recognised with a national bronze award at the 2017 Australian Crime & Violence Prevention Awards held in Canberra recently,” Mr Knowles said.

“We encourage school leavers to remember that they have a choice to make in every situation, and to own their social responsibility as they celebrate.”

“We realise this can be a very nervous time for parents and we’ve created a downloadable factsheet on Encounter Youth’s website to equip parents with topics to navigate and discuss with their young person before the weekend,” said Mr Knowles.

Motor Accident Commission, Road Safety Communications Manager, Matt Hanton said MAC was pleased to once again be Principal Partner of Schoolies Festival™ this year.

“We congratulate the students who have worked hard during the year and appreciate they’re now keen to celebrate, but what we don’t want to see is those celebrations ruined by road trauma,” said Mr Hanton.

“MAC is again supporting free transport to and from Victor Harbor and a free shuttle bus service around the Fleurieu Peninsula throughout the Schoolies Festival™”.

“It is essential to keep young people off the roads when they may risk driving distracted, fatigued or with alcohol or drugs in their system.”

“The Free MAC Schoolies Festival™ Bus Service will pick up and drop off school leavers at 16 locations across the Fleurieu Peninsula with services running approximately every 30 minutes during the peak of the Festival’s nightly celebration period,” Mr Hanton said.

School leavers are encouraged to book their Schoolies Festival™ ticket today!

The Parents Factsheet can be downloaded here.

Schoolies Festival™ with MAC will be held Friday 24th November –Sunday 26th November 2017.