Geelong the city of events

IT’S been said before that Geelong is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to staging major events, but the weekend just gone surely seals the deal.

Events stretched from Lara to the Bellarine Peninsula, with Avalon’s Airshow, Australia’s biggest, free multicultural festival the Pako Festa, the Wallington Strawberry Fair and the Highland Gathering all attracting thousands of people to our beautiful region.

The pages of this paper today are testament to the colour and vibrancy the events lent to our region over 48 hours, and the economic opportunities created by the arrival of tens-of-thousands of visitors.

Over the course of the airshow, trade deals worth a billion dollars were done and $20 million was injected into the local economy. Even the Wallington Primary School Strawberry Fair boasted patronage of more than 5000 people.

But as the Pako Festa demonstrates — perhaps better than any other local event — there is something about festivals and major events that is priceless.

They lift our spirits, enrich our communities and make us smile. When we hear visitors at the same events talking in glowing terms about what they have seen and enjoyed, we swell with pride.

And news of the many attractions of Geelong, the Surf Coast and the Bellarine Peninsula is clearly spreading as we learn today that our region was the second most successful property market in the country over the past five years. Only the Illawarra region in New South Wales fared better.

There’s no denying our region faces tough times on the jobs front, but there’s also a lot we’re doing right.

And there’s a lot to love.