TimeOut Crowds pour into festival Record 15,000 people attend free fireworks and La Festa Food and Wine Day

l CAIRNS REGION

| Gail Sedorkin

A NON-stop, action-packed day of eating, drinking, dancing, laughing, singing and talking – that was the 2023 Cairns Italian Festival’s La Festa Food and Wine day on Saturday.

It was a party at Fogarty Park enjoyed by more than 15,000 guests from 10am through to just before midnight –a record-breaking crowd for the second La Festa Day.

Cairns Italian Festival president Steve Cordenos said it was worth all the countless hours of hard work put in by the committee and volunteers to see all the smiling faces and everyone having such a good time.

“I’m very, very proud – I can’t wipe the smile off my face,” he said.

“We had more than 10,000 ticket sales and more than 15,000 people came in and out during the day.

“We quite literally blew it out of the park.

“We were never going to run out of food or drinks, and there was seating for hundreds at tables under the huge marquees.”

Mr Cordenos said he was also very proud of the free Family Fun Night, especially the spectacular fireworks, last Friday night.

“We had an incredible turnout with about 15,000 people – it was wonderful how the community supported it,” he said.

There were so many highlights of La Festa – the spaghetti eating competition, pizza acrobatics, dancers and singers – all brought together seamlessly by MC for the day, James Liotta.

Prize money of $2000 was up for grabs in the spaghetti-eating competition, with two categories, adults (16 and over) and children (15 and under), with two rounds for each category. All competitors had to eat a 240gm plate of spaghetti in the fastest time, with- out using their hands. In a record-breaking time of 46 seconds, Aliyah Durgutovski, 13, won her round and $500, beating all competitors including the adults with her time. Her sister Emilia, 10, also joined her in the competition, competing in the second children’s round.

Youssef Ben Touati, Italian World Master Chef, dazzled the crowds with his pizza acrobatics both on and off the stage.

Cairns’ own Turning Pointe Dance Studios were definitely the crowd favourite with their three shows, A Taste of Italy, An Italian Summer and Celebrate Italia, as were local opera singers, Alteouise deVaughn, Adrian

Strooper, Catherine Knight and Frank Dangelico.

Piano accordionist, Ross Maio, Siesta Cartel, the Made in Italy the Show and DJ Stefano Marciano, kept the party going well into the night.