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Sebastopol resident Rebecca Reid got in early with her family to have her pick of plants, and said there was a celebratory feeling to the event throughout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really nice that it\u2019s back on. This is one of those family events that we look forward to, and it\u2019s great that we can finally come back to it in person,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, it was much harder to plan around it so I like how they\u2019ve spread it out and they\u2019ve got more things going on around town as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got so much stuff for the families and kids. It\u2019s good fun. You can come and just spend the whole day here.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a reported attendance on par with pre-pandemic years, City of Ballarat mayor, Cr Daniel Moloney, said the festival served as a celebratory return to form.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Labour Day weekend had a really beautiful pre-COVID feel to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just had that feeling that people had been progressively wanting to get out over the past weekends, and this just provided that perfect weekend with a good range of things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Begonia Festival will conclude on Sunday, 20 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE seventieth Ballarat Begonia Festival got underway over the long weekend with the Botanical Gardens a focus for the event. The anniversary celebrations saw a range of new additions across the gardens and CBD, and visitors Geoff Smithers and Angele Cadge came from Melbourne to join in the entertainment. \u201cIt\u2019s very well-organised, they\u2019ve done a […]<\/p>\n