Adelaide’s annual Glendi Greek festival has been postponed for the first time in 30 years, due to a critical decline in volunteers, corporate sponsors, exhibitors, schools and participation of stallholders, organisers said.
The event will no longer run and won’t take place in October as planned, and is instead postponed until next year.
The Glendi board and Organising Committee announced their decision earlier this week, saying after much consideration they believed the 2010 festival would not maintain the calibre of events that the previous festivals have set.
Financial and governance matters were also part of the consideration, the board said.
With many events and activities already in motion, the board and organising committee said they are well equipped to commence preparations for the 2011 Glendi festival.
Organisers said the Glendi festival will remain a fabulous event, maintaining a strong future in the Greek and South Australian community.
Chairperson of the Glendi Greek festival board, John Chefelakis, said the decision to postpone the event should not affect government funding or sponsorship, and the festival remains important to the Greek community.
“I believe it’s still important, the thing is we need volunteers to help us put the festival on. We’ve got some good quality young volunteers, but we still need more people,” Mr Chefelakis told Neos Kosmos.
Member of the organising committee, George Vlahos, said the festival is set for some time in October next year but the committee is looking at changing it from its usual date so that it falls outside of the school holidays.
“It was meant to be held during the school holidays this year and the venue wasn’t available, so we’re still looking at what date we’ll be holding it in 2011; we’ll be determining that over the next few weeks,” Mr Vlahos told Neos Kosmos.
In a bid to boost involvement from the Greek community Mr Vlahos said the committee would be writing to all the people who have previously been associated with the event and trying to get people interested and involved.
Mr Vlahos said members of the public are still invested in the festival.
“I think there is still public interest and the government is still supporting us. We just didn’t want to put on an event that was substandard,” he said. “We’re looking for more participation from the general Greek community, because at the moment it’s come down to half a dozen people”.