Elephant Walk to change colours in 2024

A COLOURFUL Torquay festival will hit the town’s coastline in early 2024.

Festival of Colours Torquay lead organiser and centre manager of Hare Krishna Valley, Keshava Jenkins, confirmed the festival will take place on February 25 at Elephant Walk on the town’s Esplanade.

It will mark the festival’s ninth edition on the Surf Coast following the event’s inception back in 2014.

“We’re glad to have the official date locked in for next year’s Festival of Colours, we can now start putting the word out to the community and get a few balls rolling,” Mr Jenkins said.

“We’ll start rolling out our social media presence over the next few months before we really start ramping things up preparation-wise.”

Mr Jenkins said this year’s February 26 festival attracted close to 1,100 people.

“This is a community event, and the way of the world at the moment, there’s a lot of bad news and some people can feel a little bit overwhelmed by all of that,” Mr Jenkins said.

“This event just creates an opportunity to provide visitors some relief, a good time and to forget about their worries.”

The festival is well-known for its hourly “mass-throw” of colour, but Mr Jenkins stated the throws will be reduced to half-hourly intervals in 2024.

The Festival of Colours has been run in conjunction with the Surf Coast Shire and the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority since the event’s inception, as well as the Victorian Multicultural Commission.

To find out more about the festival, head to harekrishnavalley.com.au