Greek GleNTi could be pushed aside by events clash next year

DARWIN events could find themselves in a battle over the Cenotaph next June, if Darwin council can’t resolve GleNTi’s desire to relocate its growing event

Michael Melas, Jack Korfias and Stavros Makrylos had plenty of tempting souvla on offer at last year’s Greek GleNTi. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford

• ABOUT 220kg of meat prepared for Greek GleNTi
• DARWIN’S GleNTi to host more than 30,000 people

DARWIN events could find themselves in a battle over the Cenotaph next June, if Darwin council can’t resolve GleNTi’s desire to relocate its growing event.

The Greek food and cultural festival’s patrons and volunteers could find themselves pushed to the side next year with new plans to hold their event right next to a Queen’s Birthday 21 gun salute on the Saturday morning.

An exclusion zone would take place during the salute and would displace most of the GleNTi’s patrons and volunteers.

But GleNTi remains eager to relocate from its current site near Peel St after 31 years, to accommodate its increasing popularity.

Darwin Greek Community president Nick Poniris said both events were willing to compromise to ensure each other’s success, including moving the guns forward to reduce the impact on GleNTi patrons.

“They made that offer, Defence were proactive in that area of trying to accommodate us too,” he said.

“There are other changes I can make to accommodate that … small adjustments to comply with that exclusion zone.

“We’re excited about our move there and we are confident we can accommodate (the two events).”

GleNTi’s food tents and structures would not be affected by the exclusion zone.

Mr Poniris said the time had come for the Greek food and culture festival to find a bigger home, with the Cenotaph the obvious location.

“We grew out of the current space about seven years ago and are pretty congested,” he said.

With Darwin council to make the final decision on whether both events can co-exist, alderman Mick Palmer suggested another location could be more suitable for the Queen’s Birthday celebrations.

“Goyder Park (was) the place where the Queen’s representative first came ashore in Port Darwin,” he said.

“It may have even greater importance than the Cenotaph site.”

Council will organise a meeting between the parties in the coming weeks to determine logistics of the weekend’s schedule of events.

President of the Darwin RSL committee, Steve Gloster, said while the decision wasn’t his to make, it would depend on whether the two events could logistically work together.

“It’s up to them to see if they can fit … if there’s a mutual understanding, yes I do (think the events can run together),” he said.