Pak to the future
From beer drinking competitions to selfies, the Pako Festa has come a long way since it was first held in 1983. But while times change, its spirit of celebrating our cultural diversity remains the same.
CALL it a sign of the times — but when Pako Festa was first held in March, 1983, a beer-drinking competition was among the attractions.
Bring it back, we say. And the winner of that first beer sculling competition was none other than Geelong city councillor Stretch Kontelj, who was then a 21-year-old law student at Monash University.
We reproduce here the start of the story in the Geelong Advertiser on the following Monday, which featured a photo of Stretch and two other contestants drinking from “big bad cans” as they were known — the equivalent of a bottle of beer.
“Years of daily training finally paid off on Saturday afternoon for two young men from Bell Post Hill,’’ the paper said. “The two cousins won the beer-drinking competition at the Pakington Street festa.
“Srechko Kontelj, 21, and his 19year-old cousin Robert Bole finished first and second respectively.
“Srechko, a Monash University law student, said he had trained with his cousin for more than a year for the event.
“Contestants had to down a can of beer, two Salada crackers, and blow up a balloon until it burst.’’
Mr Kontelj later told his friends the secret was to “burp at regular intervals’’.
Speaking this week, Cr Kontelj said the contest continued in 1984 and 1985, and he went back-to-back, winning the 1984 event but not entering in 1985, by which time he was working.
“It was always good fun, and in all the years I have been there, there has
never been any trouble,’’ the veteran councillor said.
“In those days you have to remember that back in the 1980s the situation in the former Yugoslavia was very volatile with President Tito ruling. Things were very volatile between the Croatians and the Serbians — but we never had any issues between those groups in Geelong — they all marched side by side.’’
Cr Kontelj is himself a member of the Slovenian community, which is also in the Balkans.
Moving forward to this year, and one of the attractions at today’s Pako Festa will be the opportunity of getting a selfie with Carmen Miranda — the face of the festival for many years. Presumably punters will have to supply their own camera and selfie stick.
This weekend’s festival will be the 33rd since those heady days in 1983.
Diversitat CEO Michael Martinez, when asked this week where the iconic event now stood, said there were more people born overseas now living in Geelong than ever before.
“When you consider the ongoing migration — and it’s not just refugees — it’s Chinese, Indians, Thai, there is a growing Thai community.’’
Mr Martinez, who has a Spanish background, said if you counted the second and third-generation immigrants about a third of the population would be from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds.
He said the event was a celebration of that diversity, and it had grown exponentially.
When it was first held in 1983, an estimated crowd of 12,000 turned out.
This weekend, the nation’s largest multicultural festival is expected to attract up to 100,000 people and generate about $2.5 million for local businesses.
The highlight of the day remains the parade, which kicks off at 11am from Waratah St and heads south to West Park, with nearly 100 entries taking part.
Children will be kept amused by free entertainment at Geelong West Town Hall, which will host a live concert later on Saturday night.
During the day there will be no shortage of TV personalities, with some Channel 7 celebrities making an appearance.
Mr Martinez said there had been some criticism about the so-called commercialisation of the festival, but said the organisation went out of its way to make it as cheap as possible for the ethnic communities to be involved. “Because without them it wouldn’t be Pako Festa — people can say we’ve got our community on stage, our community in there, and it’s being renewed, with the likes of the Thais, the Indonesians, the Afghans, all these different communities, they love it.’’
When Pako Festa made its debut in 1983 there were just 19 different national groups participating.
This year there will be 45 separate ethnic community groups participating from Italian, Spanish, Greek and Dutch through to the most recently arrived migrant and refugee groups including Karenni, Congolese, Sudanese, Nepalese, Malay, Spanish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Maori, Thai — and the list goes on.
A further 60 local community groups such as schools, social clubs, music groups, bands and sports clubs will also take part.