When is Recreation Day?

The north's answer to the Regatta

Recreation Day is a public holiday on the first Monday in November for northern Tasmania. It exists to balance the Royal Hobart Regatta holiday, which only the south of the state gets in February: the Statutory Holidays Act gives each half of Tasmania one regional day, and Recreation Day is the north's. It has no particular event attached, which is why it is simply called Recreation Day.

It applies in the northern municipalities, including Launceston, and not in Hobart or the south. As with all of Tasmania's regional days, what counts is where you work, so an employer in the north is required to give the day off while one in the south is not.

Planning around it

Recreation Day falls on the same Monday as the day before Melbourne Cup Day across Bass Strait, and it is the last public holiday in the north before Christmas. As a Monday it always creates a three-day weekend, and the Friday before is an easy add. The Launceston Show holiday in October sits a few weeks earlier, so northern Tasmania has two local days in close succession in spring.

Which areas count as the north

The Statutory Holidays Act defines Recreation Day by exclusion: it applies in every part of Tasmania that does not observe the Royal Hobart Regatta holiday. In practice that means Launceston and the Tamar Valley, the north-east, and the north-west coast including Devonport and Burnie. If your workplace is in Hobart, Glenorchy, Clarence, Kingborough or the other southern councils, you have the Regatta day in February instead and the first Monday in November is an ordinary day.

Employers with staff in both halves of the state, which is common for retailers and government agencies, give each site its own regional day rather than choosing one for the whole business.