Eagles-North Melbourne AFL match: Full hotels and overflowing pubs as Bunbury braces for footy fever

Bunbury is the hottest ticket in WA this weekend, with local pubs stocking up on kegs of beer and hotel rooms booked out months in advance, as the town gears up for a blockbuster clash between the West Coast Eagles and North Melbourne.

Thousands of fans will descend on the South West for Sunday’s AFL game at Hands Oval — a unique regional fixture that will transform the tourist town into the epicentre of footy fever.

From local shops to Bunbury institutions like The Rose Hotel, businesses across town on Friday were bracing for thousands of fans from Perth and over east to begin rolling in.

“We’re super excited and have been getting ready all week,” The Highway Hotel manager Emily Erceg said. “We’ve been decorating the venue, we’ve been doing giveaways, and we’ve ordered heaps more kegs of beer and stubbies.”

The popular venue has ordered almost 30 kegs of beer for the week — 50 per cent more than usual.

“This week we’ve definitely gone extra, especially on our big sellers and the classics like Swan Draught,” Ms Erceg said, adding they’d learnt from the pre-season game in March what to expect on Sunday.

“We’ve made sure to roster on all the staff we can get on that day, because we just got absolutely flooded after that game,” she said. “Plenty of Eagles jumpers came through our doors, including some famous faces like Peter Bell from the Dockers.”

Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Julie Broad said it had been wonderful to see locals getting behind the high profile event, showing off “what Bunbury and who Bunbury is”.

“It’s the first time that regional WA has held an in-season match,” she said. “That’s just so positive ... and I think that’s been an absolute kudos to the City of Bunbury for being quite remarkable in their ability to ... put on such a large scale event.”

Anyone planning a last minute dash down south will be sorely disappointed with accommodation booked out for Saturday night, and most of Friday and Sunday.

But Ms Broad said Bunbury was still well placed to handle major events — including the up-coming and highly-anticipated Matildas match slated for July 5.

“Absolutely there is enough accommodation,” she said, adding the extra attention on the town was going to give Bunbury even more of a platform to get more development in the future.

Most Bunbury hotels have been booked out since late last year, shortly after the announcement of the Eagles-North Melbourne match.

Melanie Jarvis, the front desk manager at Quest Bunbury, said there were basically “no beds left in town”.

“What is left at this stage, they’re charging $485 per night for, which is certainly well above the average of about the $300 range,” she said.

“I don’t think there’s really anyone that’s been left disappointed though. For some events in town we get continuous calls for availability but we haven’t had that for this event because they have limited tickets so it sold out a long time ago and everyone’s organised.”

Also at full capacity this weekend is Bunbury institution The Rose Hotel.

“We’re fully booked out and have been for months,” venue manager Mat Jeffery said. “Our restaurant is booked out too – tables have been for a while for both Friday and Saturday.”

Mercure Sanctuary Golf Resort is in a similar situation, having booked its last available room for the weekend in January.

“We are full-full,” front office manager Katherine Russell said.

“We are quite limited with our numbers here so when something like this comes up we fill up quick and the weight list grows and grow. I think for some out-of-towners it can get frustrating, but it’s great for the town.”

General manager of The Lord Forrest Hotel, which has had its 115 rooms booked out for the last two months, said residents were “ecstatic”.

“This is really going to get Bunbury back on the map, people are so excited. It’s a great opportunity and honestly the more people we get coming here the better,” they said.

But not everyone had such a positive outlook.

A local publican who asked to remain anonymous told The West Australian with the game falling on Sunday afternoon, he expected some business owners would be left wanting as fans left in droves to return to Perth for work the following morning.

“We’re all expecting to have a busy weekend, but I reckon there’ll be a few deflated hearts,” he said.

Bunbury MLA Don Punch said he couldn’t estimate how much the game would inject into the local economy, the local government would be conducting an economic analysis in the wash up to see its overall impact.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming an awfully large amount of visitors,” he said. “I do know that the City of Bunbury is growing and demand for accommodation is growing as it becomes more of a visitor destination.

“We’re doing our very best to meet that growing demand. I would expect we’ll see more investment in the future.”