Paniyiri Festival moves indoors – with a honey puff drive-through
Australia’s longest running Greek festival returns in 2021 moving in-house and online, with the 45th year of Paniyiri bringing Zorba, celebrity chefs, and most importantly, a honeypuff drive-through to Brisbane’s Greek Club.
Yianni Orfanos and Eleana Ganiatsos (5) at Paniyiri Greek Festival. (Image: Peter Wallis)
Following its cancellation in 2020 due to Covid, Paniyiri is moving from its usual home in Musgrave Park across the road to the Greek Club, with a range of cooking demonstrations, dancing, music, and food events in the third week of May.
All major events including music, dancing, cultural exhibitions, and celebrity cooking events will be livestreamed online as part of a new digital programme.
Paniyiri Organising Committee Chair Mr Chris Kazonis said the decision to move was taken to combat the risks of Covid-19.
“Paniyiri Greek Festival is an initiative of the Greek Orthodox groups of South East Queensland with any funds raised channelled back into the community via the Greek Orthodox Community of St George Brisbane.
“We stage this incredible event by the grace of our community and our sponsors, and have had to adopt a format that protects us against any future lockdowns, yet still allows us to share our incredible culture, flavours, music, dance and history with greater Brisbane,” he said
The festival will see cultural exhibitions and lectures, Hellenic and celebrity dance performances, live music to be played in the Greek Club and livestreamed, and a fashion parade on both nights.
A huge programme of cooking demonstrations will feature celebrity chefs and local talent giving live demonstrations while a honeypuff drive-through will operate from the Greek Club for the duration of the festival.
Nostimo, The Greek Club’s award-winning restaurant, will also celebrate Paniyiri for the duration of May with lunch and dinner specials running throughout the month.
As Queensland’s biggest cultural festival, Paniyiri was begun by Brisbane’s Greek community in 1976, celebrating the traditions and culture of Greece.
Typically hosted in Musgrave Park, the festival is used to seeing up to 50,000 patrons of Greek culture, sampling the baklava, watching Hellenic dancers, and viewing the grape stomping events. The festival plans to be equally lively this year in its home at the Greek Club.
Tickets go on sale at 9am on May 3 and more information about scheduling and programming is to be released soon.
Paniyiri Greek Festival will run from May 22 – 23 at the Greek Club in South Brisbane, for more information visit the Paniyiri website.
