{"id":111297,"date":"2025-03-01T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/?p=111297"},"modified":"2025-02-28T08:31:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T21:31:44","slug":"pako-festa-ends-early-due-to-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/news\/pako-festa-ends-early-due-to-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"Pako Festa ends early due to heat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THIS year&#8217;s Pako Festa was held on a sweltering Saturday, with the event ending early due to the hot temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>The annual celebration of Geelong&#8217;s multicultural community still featured the famous parade along Pakington Street, but organisers Cultura made the decision to stop the event at 2pm in the interests of public safety.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30038\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30038\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30038\" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2025\/03\/PakoFesta5_74570.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30038\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pako Festa is an annual celebration of Geelong&#8217;s multicultural community.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Cultura chief executive officer Joy Leggo said 50 floats and more than 2,000 people participated in the parade, and there were more than 100 stalls.<\/p>\n<p>She estimated crowd attendance at 70,000, down on the 100,000 who attended in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The heat impacted us, for sure. It was a challenging day,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30038\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30038\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30038 \" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2025\/03\/PakeFesta4_22633.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"260\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30038\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crowds line Pakington Street for the parade.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But gee, the vibe was pretty amazing. A lot of people came early; that&#8217;s been a bit of a change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The harmony of the whole event was terrific.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30038\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30038\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30038\" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2025\/03\/PakoFesta3_20859.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30038\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Geelong&#8217;s Lithuanian community.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She said it was disappointing about 30 of the 60 groups could perform on Pako Festa&#8217;s five stages because of the early finish, but plans were being drawn up to host some kind of community event later this year to give them a chance and acknowledge their efforts.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30038\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30038\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30038\" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2025\/03\/PakoFesta2_84519.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30038\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">There were 50 floats at this year&#8217;s event.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She encouraged anyone who attended Pako Festa this year to head to the website at <a href=\"http:\/\/pakofesta.com.au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pakofesta.com.au<\/a> and fill out a survey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THIS year&#8217;s Pako Festa was held on a sweltering Saturday, with the event ending early due to the hot temperatures. The annual celebration of Geelong&#8217;s multicultural community still featured the famous parade along Pakington Street, but organisers Cultura made the decision to stop the event at 2pm in the interests of public safety. &nbsp; Cultura [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/news\/pako-festa-ends-early-due-to-heat\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":111303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-111297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pako Festa ends early due to heat - 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