Massive crowd celebrates diversity at Pako Festa

Organisers of Pako Festa have hailed this year’s edition as one of the best yet, as at least 100,000 people joined in the multicultural fun on Saturday.

The Cultura-managed event is Victoria’s largest free multicultural street festival, with this year’s theme being “Many Cultures, One Street: Celebrating Identity with Pride”.

New features this year included the livestreaming of the popular street parade on Facebook; a ‘Shop Local, Support Local’ competition, in which the Pako Festa visitors had the chance to win a $1,000 cash prize; the Geelong Arts Centre RAW Stage for young emerging artists; and the Media Wall, where attendees could have their photo taken with community members in traditional costume.

Pako Festa event director Luisa LaFornara said the 44th staging of the event had gone very well.

“We had over 100,000 people – I’ve been the event director for 22 years, and it’s one of the biggest [crowds] I’ve seen,” she said.

“We were very lucky with the weather.

“It was great to see the community to come together in a safe way, and for Geelong to celebrate the incredible diversity we have.”

LaFornara thanked Pako Festa’s major sponsors The Gordon, TAC, GravIT, Barwon Water, WorkSafe, Adroit Insurance and Risk, Unified Technology, Beyond Bank, Geelong Arts Centre and Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme, as well as the 100 volunteers that helped put the event on.

“And a huge thanks to the local community for supporting us,” LaFornara said.