A day at the 2015 National Multicultural Festival

I have, like Sophia, always marked the Multicultural Festival in my calendar as the “not to be missed” event of the year. Though what I think needs to be mentioned is that the popularity and the size of the event has now outgrown the location. Eight years ago, what use to be a wonderful aspect to the festival was the participation that could occur from the crowd… chairs to sit on, space to dance and enjoy the performances and space to move between the wonderful stalls and food on offer.

The event is a great success story of the National Capital, which has inspired others that have followed, such as Enlighten and the surrounding wine festivals etc. What I would love to see is perhaps for the location to change to Commonwealth Park (location for Floriade) so that there is more room for visitors to move around, rather than feeling like a sardine in a can. The Multicultural Festival has still retained its original essence, but unfortunately, I can no longer spend more than an hour at the event, where as years gone by it would be an all day fun fair!!! Commonwealth Park would still offer reasonable transport and car parking that is accessible from the city.

In saying that… what a great event – food and drinks were fantastic… sadly could not access or see the entertainment (which for me is the real winner).

Thoroughly agree.

The Multi-cultural festival has to be the best thing on the Canberra calendar and just shows how much Canberra has grown up. Even though what constitutes a nation’s food seems to be very blurry to say the least.

The venue is fine, let’s not move it out of the city into the Gardens.

Canberra needs more crowded life, not less. Look forward to the day trams push their way through crowds in Garema Place.

What disappointed me the most was the lack of Belgian food. For those of you who’ve been to Belgium you’ll know what I mean. For those who haven’t, you’re missing some amazing food. I’m sure a small serve of moules-frites or beef carbonnade or waterzooi chicken would go down a treat, washed down with a Leffe, Hoegaarden (a round of applause if you know how to pronounce it correctly) or perhaps a fruit or trappist beer. Oh and the waffles and chocolate. They could’ve had a big chocolate fountain too. Hmmm perhaps next year.

PCB said :

Alexandra Craig said :

The last few times I’ve been to the festival the hot weather has really ruined it for me so when it was raining this weekend I was stoked!

The only problem is, it was still super busy I found it hard to work out what stall was what – not every stall had a giant sign on it. I tried to download the map but couldn’t get any signal on my phone (presumably signal was jammed because of all the people in one place)

I made the same observation to my partner re chips on a stick. Amazing isn’t it.

I reckon the Multicultural Festival should be held where Floriade is held. More room to move and there’d be way more airflow without all the buildings.

Lol. Food and wine frolic anyone?

Does that still exist? I remember, many years ago, my family would take their annual trek down to the alcoholic frolic. Dad would get dropped off in the morning to find the best spot, trailing his homemade trolley with esky and cases of beer behind him.

Ending it all with the much painful ice fight and then stumbling over the bridge and to the cab rank with all the other drunks.

And then they fenced it off, charged people for overpriced food and wine and we didn’t go back. I assume that probably was the intent though.

Long story short, I agree that it would be better in Commonwealth Park… for one I wouldn’t have had to walk from Constitution Ave to Marcus Clarke street to catch the bus and two, I could have gone into the city as I wanted to but decided against because of the masses of people that were there.

Alexandra Craig said :

The last few times I’ve been to the festival the hot weather has really ruined it for me so when it was raining this weekend I was stoked!

The only problem is, it was still super busy I found it hard to work out what stall was what – not every stall had a giant sign on it. I tried to download the map but couldn’t get any signal on my phone (presumably signal was jammed because of all the people in one place)

I made the same observation to my partner re chips on a stick. Amazing isn’t it.

I reckon the Multicultural Festival should be held where Floriade is held. More room to move and there’d be way more airflow without all the buildings.

Lol. Food and wine frolic anyone?

The last few times I’ve been to the festival the hot weather has really ruined it for me so when it was raining this weekend I was stoked!

The only problem is, it was still super busy I found it hard to work out what stall was what – not every stall had a giant sign on it. I tried to download the map but couldn’t get any signal on my phone (presumably signal was jammed because of all the people in one place)

I made the same observation to my partner re chips on a stick. Amazing isn’t it.

I reckon the Multicultural Festival should be held where Floriade is held. More room to move and there’d be way more airflow without all the buildings.

Milly Withers said :

It still blows my mind that every year the longest queue is for the chips on a stick. They’re overpriced, taste the same as normal chips and are the sort of food (and flavour) that you can get anywhere! Us Canberrans are a bizarre lot.

I think it is a sad indictment on the good folk of Canberra that the Chips on a Stick vans had the longest lines. Really, with plenty of options for different and interesting foods, why eat chips…

Crowds seemed down on last year, but perhaps the weather can be blamed. Also caught the free park and ride bus in, much better than parking in some far flung corner of civic and hiking 5 miles to the centre of town.

dungfungus said :

Milly Withers said :

Are you seriously suggesting that “hundreds of thousands” were there on Saturday afternoon?
That is at least more than half the population of Canberra.
About 50,000 is more like it.

No, Dungfungus, I meant hundreds of thousands over the whole weekend, which is what organisers were expecting.

Milly Withers said :

Great photos Sophia. I went along on Sunday afternoon and while it was packed, it definitely seemed like they had managed the crowds and placement of stalls better than in previous years. When hundreds of thousands of people descend on a small place, crowds are unavoidable though, so no use complaining.

Like FHW, I also thought it was good that more stallholders were offering cheaper, smaller serves so that you could sample lots of different foods instead of filling up on a whole plate of cuisine from one seller. The $1 beef momos from the Tibetan stall were the best thing I ate at the festival.

It still blows my mind that every year the longest queue is for the chips on a stick. They’re overpriced, taste the same as normal chips and are the sort of food (and flavour) that you can get anywhere! Us Canberrans are a bizarre lot.

Are you seriously suggesting that “hundreds of thousands” were there on Saturday afternoon?
That is at least more than half the population of Canberra.
About 50,000 is more like it.

Great photos Sophia. I went along on Sunday afternoon and while it was packed, it definitely seemed like they had managed the crowds and placement of stalls better than in previous years. When hundreds of thousands of people descend on a small place, crowds are unavoidable though, so no use complaining.

Like FHW, I also thought it was good that more stallholders were offering cheaper, smaller serves so that you could sample lots of different foods instead of filling up on a whole plate of cuisine from one seller. The $1 beef momos from the Tibetan stall were the best thing I ate at the festival.

It still blows my mind that every year the longest queue is for the chips on a stick. They’re overpriced, taste the same as normal chips and are the sort of food (and flavour) that you can get anywhere! Us Canberrans are a bizarre lot.