General News
26 January, 2024
Changes to festival
A YOUNG and invigorated committee, led by real estate agent Claudio Di Bartolomeo, is taking over Cairns’ first Italian Festival and are aiming to take it to new heights with a new format and the classic Italian flare for its third edition.
With former treasurer Claudio Di Bartolomeo as the president, two vice-presidents businessman Sam Marino and former prosecutor and Italian migrant Gelma Meoli, secretary Stephanie Iovanella, treasurer Anna Cito and members Patty Poutanen and Rita Rosaclerio make up the new committee of the festival that has been a huge success since its launch in 2022.
Mr Di Bartolomeo thanked the past committee and said he was prepared to work hard in his new role.
“I’d like to thank the exiting committee Steve Cordenos, Lui Garozzo, Angelo Aurelio and all of the committee for their amazing work the past two years. Yours are very hard shoes to fill,” he said.
“I like to work hard but I enjoy doing it out of the spotlight. For the past two years I’ve been in my comfort zone behind the scenes but this year the committee said I was the right man for the job and I’ll try my best. This year we have a young committee and I’m really proud of it, we have two vice-presidents in Gelma and Sam, and I’m not as experienced, but I’m receiving a lot of support.”
Although the official dates for the 2024 festival are yet to be announced, this year there’s a new format with a 11-day straight celebration and a total of 13 events.
“We can confirm La Festa is coming back, we’ll hold it on the last Saturday of July, and we will have a couple of new events that we’ll announce soon,” Mr Di Bartolomeo said.
“The past two years we had approximately three weeks of events spread out, but this year we decided to hold it for 11 days straight with one or several events daily, by having it this way we can encourage tourists to extend their stay for a whole week and promote tourism in the region.”
Mr Di Bartolomeo encouraged the community to come on board and support the festival in its third year.
“We want people to see the stories from Italian migrants young and old because it’s important for us to remember all generations of migrants and celebrate where we came from,” he said.
