Ganesh fest set to impress

A FESTIVAL celebrating the Hindu god Ganesh is returning to the region from today.

Hosted by members of the Ballarat Hindu Temple and Cultural Centre, the Grand Ganesh Festival will run for free throughout the weekend until this Sunday.

BHTCC president Pradush Narayanan said much like last year’s debut, the event will feature a full program of activities.

“For the first day we’ll have cultural awareness programs for kids to educate and have that awareness,” he said.

“There’ll be lots of singing, dancing, free food. Friday night there will be fireworks, and Saturday will have a showcase with lots of performances.

“We’ll have made a Ganesh idol which will be immersed in water on Sunday.”

Last year’s event was billed as the first regional Australian Ganesh festival, which Mr Narayanan said drew in 7000 people.

He said the first event’s success showed regional communities are capable of putting on grand multicultural festivals just as well as metropolitan areas.

“What we found is a lot of people from regional districts like Ballarat, Geelong, Maryborough and Bendigo attended the programs,” he said.

“That was our big success because every time people want to go celebrate something like this they think they have to go out to Melbourne to do it.

“We wanted to put this on again because of the response from last time. Even six months ago we thought we were coming back smaller-scale but the demand was there”

BHTCC’s Grand Ganesh Festival will be held at Ballarat High School and for program details visit the organisation’s website.