Opa! Greeks in Western Australia are cheering in the masses following the announcement of the return of the Perth Glendi Greek Festival this February.
Presented By LiveLighter, the Glendi Festival is promised to feature mouth-watering, traditional Greek food, a talented line-up of local and interstate Greek singers, musicians and dance groups, belly dancers, plate smashing, celebrity cooking demos, market stalls, children’s carnival rides and lots more!
Speaking to The Greek Herald, event publicist Despene Kalaf said the event will see people from all nationalities come together and be united in their love of Greek culture.
“I’m sure I speak for the committee and myself when I say at a time when overseas travel is not possible, we feel that more than ever West Australians, and Australians at large, are really looking for cultural experiences at home,” Despene said to The Greek Herald.
“And I’m thrilled to say, based on the popularity of our past three festivals, that there is a real strong interest in embracing Greek culture within our wider community.”
The Festival will be entering its fourth year of operation and is to be celebrated over two days with a $2.50 entry fee per person (children under 16 to enter free).
Asked about attendance numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Despene said they will be expecting roughly the same attendance as previous years.
“Obviously this year people are a lot more cautious about where they go to… very selective because everyones not used to going out as much with restrictions in place,” Despene said.
“In terms of capacity though, we can still have 8000 people per day because it’s in a large venue with lots of space, so plenty of room for social distancing.”
The festival will feature traditional Greek dancing performers and a dolmades eating contest, yet Despene hopes restrictions will be eased to allow dancing in the crowd.
“There’ll be certainly different forms of entertainment, but we’re hoping we can get everyone up and doing the Zorba or some Greek dancing and sort of engage and interact with the band and the live music.”
“At the moment, dancing is not allowed, only if you are performing on stage or on the dance floor. So that’ll be something different. We’ll have to get used to it if we’re not allowed to formally have the audience dancing with us.”
The Perth Glendi Facebook and Instagram pages will be taking small snapshots and videos throughout the day and posting them to social media, allowing audiences at home to tune into the fun. Despene said the committee is still determining if parts of the festival will be live streamed to the public.
The festival commences on Saturday, 27 February from 3pm – 10pm and Sunday, 28 February from 11am – 8pm.
