News Alert |

This weekend, our beautiful Ballarat Botanical Gardens will be put on display at the Ballarat Begonia Festival. The three-day festival has an enormous number of free events bringing an exciting, colourful and creative flare to our city. 

Whether you are a green thumb, a foodie, have kids, or want to know more about beekeeping or composting, this year it's easier than ever to find events and activities to tempt the whole family. 

On Saturday, the focus will be on horticulture, gardening, composting and beekeeping, and we are delighted to welcome back Dirtgirl and Costa Georgiadis. These ABC icons will be joined by Sophie Thomson from Gardening Australia. 

On Sunday, the focus will shift to all things food. Activities and events will centre around harvesting products from your own garden and using them in your kitchen. We are delighted to be joined by MasterChef royalty Poh Ling Yeow, Tim Bone and Anushka Zargaryan, who will be cooking up a feast on the main stage.  

On Monday, the festival will come alive with the iconic Power FM Begonia Parade. Along with the parade, there will be stacks of entertainment for the whole family to enjoy including meet and greets with ABC Kids' Bluey and Bingo, dance and magic shows. 

On behalf of the community, I would like to offer a big thank you to everyone who is contributing to this year’s Begonia Festival. To all our valued sponsors, partners, local businesses, event organisers, educators, performers, and volunteers – it’s wonderful to see our community come together for this very special Ballarat event. 

The Begonia Festival kicks off an exciting season of events this autumn. Next month, our creative community will host Ballarat Open Studios: Art of Making. Promoting Ballarat’s position as a UNESCO Creative City of Craft and Folk Art, the doors to some of Ballarat’s little-known creative workspaces will be thrown open from 3-13 April. The program includes more than 20 artist studios and 30 exhibitions, workshops, masterclasses and talks. 

Later in the season, we will also see the advent of Ballarat Heritage Weekend, Pyrenees Unearthed and the return of the AFL.  

With so much happening in Ballarat this autumn, I encourage you all to get and enjoy our city and connect with your local community. Whether it's through taking an art class or trying fresh seasonal produce at one of our local farmers markets, there really is so much to do in Ballarat this autumn.

Don’t forget to share your experiences and adventures with #visitballarat